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dalestrauss

macrumors regular
Sep 1, 2013
179
200
Midland, TX
Chill out guys. Apple isn't trying to iOS your Mac.
I'm an outsider (iPhone and iPad Pro, but Windows 10 Spectre x360) but my immediate reaction to the Big Sur demo was "This looks like a multi-windowing environment for my iPad Pro." Granted, that is a simplistic view, but when the Mac users over at MacBreak Weekly express the same impressions, I know I'm not entirely wacked. This feels like the beginning of the dumbing down of MacOS.
 

Kan-O-Z

macrumors 6502
Aug 3, 2007
304
2
It doesn't take a genius to realize that if the ability to run mobile apps which comprise 80% of worldwide phones on a platform that runs on 90% of computers has made absolutely zero impact, then Apple's capability isn't going to be a "mega game changer"
I literally know no one who uses Android apps on Windows. That support is fairly recent as well so maybe it hasn't caught on. Either its not advertised well or perhaps it's not a seamless experience for developers to support it or maybe the end user experience is lacking.

In either case I wouldn't poo poo it just yet. Remember when what happened to mp3 player and then iPod came around and the market and use for that went to a new level.
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I literally know no one who uses Android apps on Windows. That support is fairly recent as well so maybe it hasn't caught on. Either its not advertised well or perhaps it's not a seamless experience for developers to support it or maybe the end user experience is lacking.

In either case I wouldn't poo poo it just yet. Remember when what happened to mp3 player and then iPod came around and the market and use for that went to a new level.

I for one wouldn't mind having some of the social networking apps native to the Mac. I don't necessarily like web based stuff all the time. You even get a separate way to launch just that app with a badge counter and better integration.

I do think the Apple silicon will be a big deal. You are going to bring a vast software support to the Mac. If done right it MAY actually start taking bigger market share away from Windows which has dominated for many decades.

To top it off Macs may inherently be superior when it comes to hardware, thinness, speed, battery consumption - as compared to all of the competition. This may work out really well for Apple.
 
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Ansath

macrumors demi-god
Jun 9, 2018
4,460
4,827
England
As far as I know, there’s no android emulator running ARM based android, but x86 variant of it. This means app compatibility suffers and apps/games writing for ARM will have a chance to not run. (I just have one of those games refusing to run on even bluestacks)

I was oversimplifying, I know.

Useful to some, a gimmick to many, but certainly a simple way of getting a lot of simple desktop games onto Mac.

Questions:

Is this really a game changer if developers can already use catalyst to port some/most apps to Mac OS, assuming they're written in Swift?

Also think on this: There will be two platforms: an Intel Mac that can run Mac apps and windows apps, or an Arm Mac that can run Mac apps and iPhone/Ipad apps. Which is the most compelling platform?

I think the move to arm is good in the long term (for supply chain, to differentiate, vertical integration etc. ) but being able to run iOS apps is not the reason.

Good Mac apps are designed for Mac. Developers that want to get their iOS apps onto Mac OS and not make them feel janky will need to be some effort to change the touch paradigm to one that takes advantage of a traditional computer. And if they need to do this then they may as well build for Mac OS properly. And they can do this for Intel as well as Arm.

If developers want to maintain the value in what they do, they want simply accept the default 'make available on Mac OS' box - they'll disable this and build a specific Mac OS app with extra features.

There's some good apps I use on my iPad, with the magic keyboard, and so used to using the keyboard & trackpad with the app. I think for those apps, this is cracking.

Any good developer that has seperate iOS & MacOS, will continue to do so, but sometimes there are people that prefer a simplified version.

I'm curious to see how WhatsApp would work, if they allow it.
 

4jasontv

Suspended
Jul 31, 2011
6,272
7,548
I'm an outsider (iPhone and iPad Pro, but Windows 10 Spectre x360) but my immediate reaction to the Big Sur demo was "This looks like a multi-windowing environment for my iPad Pro." Granted, that is a simplistic view, but when the Mac users over at MacBreak Weekly express the same impressions, I know I'm not entirely wacked. This feels like the beginning of the dumbing down of MacOS.

Yeah. I dropped the /s. For years the Mac faithful have lamented the idea that their OS would be taken over by iOS. Now, not only is the OS being converted to iOS, but so is the hardware.
 

developer13245

macrumors 6502a
Nov 15, 2012
771
1,001
For example, I like using Apollo for accessing Reddit. The dev is a one-man shop and is passionate about his app— active in forums, twitter and so forth and constantly bringing improvements to it. His app is so good in fact, I have grown to abhor the traditional way of going through the web browser to get to Reddit and usually wind up reaching for my iPhone or iPad even while sitting at my Mac with a 26” screen in front of me. I would LOVE to see an Apollo for Mac but I know it won’t happen since the dev can’t find extra time to even knock out a Catalyst version right now.

Nice to see a user recognize the accomplishments and challenges of a "one-man" operation! Most users seem to think independent devs are 'greedy' jerks that drive Lamborghinis from coffee shop to coffee shop where they crank out code on their latest MacBook Pros (as depicted in early Apple iPhone dev emotional marketing). But I understand living in a cubeville all day can create such delusion - most don't realize the cubeville almost always offers a larger and more stable paycheck.

Creating iOS/Mac cross-platform applications has been quite "doable" for years now. Especially if the application was originally an iOS app with a somewhat 'smaller' feature set (compared to a typical desktop app). But the main reason for the lack of these apps has been poor return on investment. Most mac apps don't make much (if any) money.

So this ability makes sense for such developers. I'm not opposed to it because devs that currently sell the same app for iOS and Mac have the option to keep it that way. Many of these developers have made significant investment in Mac-only feature development (because it made sense for a desktop implementation), and don't want to be forced to "give it away" on the Mac, and destroy their Mac App revenue.

But your reasonable attitude is very rare. There will be no end to the crap most users will dump on devs that don't make their iOS apps available for free on the Mac.
 

Ansath

macrumors demi-god
Jun 9, 2018
4,460
4,827
England
Yeah. I dropped the /s. For years the Mac faithful have lamented the idea that their OS would be taken over by iOS. Now, not only is the OS being converted to iOS, but so is the hardware.

It's baffling to me that some people have this attitude. Apple know their Pro users are a big part of the income for Mac's, which is why they revert some hardware changes after big uproar from the Pro users. Bringing the look of the menus/icons, etc to be similar to iOS, is just a way to bring more people to Mac, along with the ability to bring familiar apps from iOS into this.

As others have said (Starrwulfe, Developer13245, for example), there are cracking iOS apps, from smaller developers, that do not have the time to create a dedicated MacOS version. So we won't get to miss out on the Mac. It can only be good for us.
 

pacalis

macrumors 65816
Oct 5, 2011
1,003
661
So will we be able to install Big Sur on an ipad pro?

Use case.. Student wants to both take notes and do homework.
 

RaoulDuke42

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2010
119
199
Los Angeles
A Mac will now be able run iphone and iPad apps. And as Mac OS 11 now has more spacing between targets, I do see a touch screen Mac that is iPad Pro-like with a Magic Keyboard as a posibility. I mean why not? Why wouldnt a designer not want the option to pick up an Apple Pencil to work in Illustrator or Photoshop?

Agreed. Apple has come at this idea of how to integrate multi-touch and stylus input into a traditional mouse/keyboard based OS the right way— incrementally. MS just crammed their old OS into laptops with touchscreens and expected devs to write more touch friendly experiences with little incentive to do so- touching elements designed for mice worked **well enough** for most people and anyone I‘ve ever seen with a touch enabled PC pretty much only ever uses it (briefly, because holding your arm over the trackpad/keyboard base sucks) for scrolling about a webpage. Speaking of ergonomics, I agree the cantilevered keyboard case of the iPad Pro is a harbinger- as it addresses that whole arm in the air issue— but I think with the Mac I think they’ll go with a less hideous version of this design—
1593023968569.jpeg

and when they introduce it they’ll open it up like a normal laptop, and then do the head-explodey moment where they flip the screen to demonstrate optimal iPad/iPhone app use and or Pencil use in Photoshop... but it’s still not an OS merge! Side-loading programs from the web, multiple windows scattered about to one’s heart’s content, Terminal commands, and virtualization will keep Macs, Macs. iPads will remain touch-first driven machines (and mad thin+light), but can support mice and keyboards if you’re into that, and Macs will be the run-everything uber device that are mouse/keyboard first interface wise (and a wee bit heftier), but here’s a touch-screen for when you want that. Doing It right .
 

pacalis

macrumors 65816
Oct 5, 2011
1,003
661
Isn't the developer mac mini an ipad pro with ports and no screen? And the demo iMac an ipad pro with a stand and no touch?

Don't we already have the above except with no Big Sur?
 

MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,275
3,696
Those icons in the dock are hideous. I don't think the icons should be unified between macOS and iOS, but if that must happen, use the icons from iOS, don't just take the Mac icon and throw a white rounded square behind it. That's just ugly.

Also... now that iOS apps are on macOS... what about the new iOS Widgets? Those seem kind of analogous to apps that live on the right side of the status bar...

you don't know what hideous is until you see Linux GUI. The Xfce DE looks like its from the Amiga days. I never knew making a GUI was so difficult.

I don’t understand why some people are shooting down the ability to use iOS apps on Macs. It helps the entire ecosystem bring and keep mindshare and improves the application landscape. Think of how many developers there are that are cranking out great apps for iOS/iPadOS but have zero interest/time/knowledge to bring their app to Mac.

For example, I like using Apollo for accessing Reddit. The dev is a one-man shop and is passionate about his app— active in forums, twitter and so forth and constantly bringing improvements to it. His app is so good in fact, I have grown to abhor the traditional way of going through the web browser to get to Reddit and usually wind up reaching for my iPhone or iPad even while sitting at my Mac with a 26” screen in front of me. I would LOVE to see an Apollo for Mac but I know it won’t happen since the dev can’t find extra time to even knock out a Catalyst version right now.

The same with my favorite photo editing app (Affinity) and favorite lightweight video editing app (Lumafusion), all of which would be greatly appreciated and welcomed whenever they could run on my Mac.


This is the question indeed. I would say no, and that ”sideloading” will always be a platform differentiator for MacOS along with it being able to run things in VMs and container. Otherwise you’ll have Macs become iPad Pro Ultra Extreme.

I’m still going to need command line apps like brew, ffmpeg, vim, ssh, tmux, python, and nodejs to work in my environment. But since they all work in current ARM systems like Raspberry Pi, then I would expect no worries on MacOS 11 on ARM. Mac devs use these tools too and they would need for them to work too.

Because Mac apps will be dumb down versions to iOS apps. Basically instead of using Photoshop for MacOS, you will use Photoshop for iPhone on iOS. Check out FireFox on iOS then check out FireFox for MacOS and see how much more is powerful and capable. Developers will try to build one app to fit all at the cost of losing functionality.
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,545
6,042
you don't know what hideous is until you see Linux GUI. The Xfce DE looks like its from the Amiga days. I never knew making a GUI was so difficult.

I don’t pay (much) for Linux, so I accept that it’s not always the easiest on the eyes.

99% of the time I’m just SSHing or FTPing in - it’s pretty rare that I actually see the GUI on my Raspberry Pi.
 

Starrwulfe

macrumors newbie
Nov 27, 2019
5
23
Tokyo, Japan (東京都)
you don't know what hideous is until you see Linux GUI. The Xfce DE looks like its from the Amiga days. I never knew making a GUI was so difficult.
You ever visit http://reddit.com/r/unixporn? Or see ZorinOS or Xubuntu? They both run Xfce with a more updated skin. Changing the WM and DE in Linux is as easy as changing your socks and is not a real comparison.

Because Mac apps will be dumb down versions to iOS apps. Basically instead of using Photoshop for MacOS, you will use Photoshop for iPhone on iOS. Check out FireFox on iOS then check out FireFox for MacOS and see how much more is powerful and capable. Developers will try to build one app to fit all at the cost of losing functionality.
Again, not a fair comparison. Web browsers on iOS are hamstrung already because they must all use Apple WebKit and not their native engines like Blink or whatever Mozilla’s new version of Gecko is called. They are effectively just wrappers for their sync tech so you can have your Chrome or Firefox bookmarks/passwords/etc.

If you really want to see a powerful iOS program, just look at any of the iWork apps. They are 100% the same features you get in the Mac versions. Check out LumaFusion video editor. Broadcast quality video editing that is on par with Adobe Premiere. Check out https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/ipad/ and Photo for their iPad apps that are 100% feature parity with their Mac and Windows versions.

There are many complex iOS programs out there. The iPad has proven can get work done, and any of those programs can be refactored quite simply to run in Catalyst already; they won’t even need that to run on Apple’s silicon. But did you even watch the keynote where they used photoshop to open a 5GB PSD on an A12Z chipped Mac? Literally the whole keynote was demoed using their new OS on their SoC. Its still a Mac, you will still be able to get programs from anywhere, you will still be able to brick it if you delete KEXT files or Bork the wrong PLISTs.
 
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4jasontv

Suspended
Jul 31, 2011
6,272
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It's baffling to me that some people have this attitude. Apple know their Pro users are a big part of the income for Mac's, which is why they revert some hardware changes after big uproar from the Pro users. Bringing the look of the menus/icons, etc to be similar to iOS, is just a way to bring more people to Mac, along with the ability to bring familiar apps from iOS into this.

As others have said (Starrwulfe, Developer13245, for example), there are cracking iOS apps, from smaller developers, that do not have the time to create a dedicated MacOS version. So we won't get to miss out on the Mac. It can only be good for us.

Remember Windows Mobile? The original one with the stylus that looked just like Window's XP? It quickly lost market share to BlackBerry, iOS, and android because mobile devices and desktop's needed different UI. Remember how Microsoft pushed Metro, the touch interface on Windows? People hated it because a Mobile UI is terrible to navigate and use on a desktop.

Yet here we are promoting that iOS apps with their massive buttons that require touch gestures will some how be good when used with a mouse. I already see the icons used in OS11 being to big and this will extend to the apps that have excessively large toolbars without proper scaling and impossible to perform gestures without without hotkeys and function updates.

Think of all the terrible video games that tried to use non-standard controls. Platformers that used up to jump are universally despised. Having a bad experience with a developers app is going to be worse than there never being a desktop app. If I download the desktop app and it is carbon copy of the mobile version I will assume the developer is lazy or overworked and can't actually support all the platforms they are releasing on.
 

4jasontv

Suspended
Jul 31, 2011
6,272
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If you really want to see a powerful iOS program, just look at any of the iWork apps. They are 100% the same features you get in the Mac versions.

Only they aren't. Look at these two screenshots.

1593090482246.png
howto-highlight-in-pages-mac-4-610x526.jpg


The first is pages on iPadOS and the second is the macOS version. Notice how the mac version can fit so much more on the menus because they don't have to accommodate fingers? How the menu's don't obscure content.

Now a question I have is how everything is scaled on various sized screens? Will we be forced to use the apps at a max resolution of the iPad or will we be able to make them full screen on our 34 inch displays? Will making them larger also increase the size of the buttons as well, or will macOS be able to increase the size of content without changing the size of buttons? Will that break the UI more?

I agree that iWork apps are powerful mobile apps that mirror most features of their desktop counterpart, but that does not mean that using the iOS or iPadOS version on the Mac would result in equal levels of productivity. And that's what all those features are supposed to do, increase productivity.

And before you say 'Apple likely thought of that' remember they shipped multiple versions of an OS that made your display black if you entered full screen and had more than one monitor.
 
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cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,471
California
So will we be able to install Big Sur on an ipad pro?

Use case.. Student wants to both take notes and do homework.
No you will not.
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you don't know what hideous is until you see Linux GUI. The Xfce DE looks like its from the Amiga days. I never knew making a GUI was so difficult.



Because Mac apps will be dumb down versions to iOS apps. Basically instead of using Photoshop for MacOS, you will use Photoshop for iPhone on iOS. Check out FireFox on iOS then check out FireFox for MacOS and see how much more is powerful and capable. Developers will try to build one app to fit all at the cost of losing functionality.

1) adobe ain’t gonna allow you to run ios photoshop on MacOS
2) the point isn’t to run dumbed down apps on MacOS. It’s to run apps that may not have counterparts on MacOS. Little utilities, special-purpose apps, enterprise apps where your i.t. Dept hasn’t the time or inclination to address mac but does provide ios apps, etc. Hell, even running apps like Uber, DoorDash, amazon, etc. which have web counterparts but not mac app counterparts may be of value to some people, especially if they add widget support and other mac niceties.
 
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MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,275
3,696
You ever visit http://reddit.com/r/unixporn? Or see ZorinOS or Xubuntu? They both run Xfce with a more updated skin. Changing the WM and DE in Linux is as easy as changing your socks and is not a real comparison.


Again, not a fair comparison. Web browsers on iOS are hamstrung already because they must all use Apple WebKit and not their native engines like Blink or whatever Mozilla’s new version of Gecko is called. They are effectively just wrappers for their sync tech so you can have your Chrome or Firefox bookmarks/passwords/etc.

If you really want to see a powerful iOS program, just look at any of the iWork apps. They are 100% the same features you get in the Mac versions. Check out LumaFusion video editor. Broadcast quality video editing that is on par with Adobe Premiere. Check out https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/ipad/ and Photo for their iPad apps that are 100% feature parity with their Mac and Windows versions.

There are many complex iOS programs out there. The iPad has proven can get work done, and any of those programs can be refactored quite simply to run in Catalyst already; they won’t even need that to run on Apple’s silicon. But did you even watch the keynote where they used photoshop to open a 5GB PSD on an A12Z chipped Mac? Literally the whole keynote was demoed using their new OS on their SoC. Its still a Mac, you will still be able to get programs from anywhere, you will still be able to brick it if you delete KEXT files or Bork the wrong PLISTs.

Each platform has its own unique way of being interacted with. A remote is great for your bluray player, but you don't want a remote for your iPad. You want a touch-button for pause&play and you want to scrub through the timeline with your finger on the screen. I guarantee that developers will try and strike a middle ground between iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS making the results not a great iphone, ipad, or MacOS app. In the early days of iPad we used to run iPhone apps in full size and it was not a fun experience.

As for linux, I know you can customize it but you have to hunt out for the right combination of icons+fonts+theme+colors. A standard default like MacOS gui would be very welcome.
 
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