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Twitter Bringing Mac App Back Using Apple's Project Catalyst
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"Multiple windows" isn't a feature. It's skewomorphism, trying to replicate a messy desktop covered in sheets of paper, and easily the worst idea anyone ever had for designing computer GUIs. My favorite thing about iPadOS is that it allows for multiple apps to be on-screen at once, without them randomly obscuring each other.
The ideal UI for managing multiple sections on screen would probably be to take the Blender (the open source modeling application) and apply it to the entire OS. I'm sure there's somebody who already made it on Linux if you want to deal with figuring out how to make it run... but I'd really like to see it on Mac OS or Windows.
Microsoft has kind of lead the way here, with window snapping in Windows 7 (and they silently expanded that a bit in Windows 10) but they haven't bitten the bullet and just killed the ability to arbitrarily allow windows to overlap each other.
The ideal UI for managing multiple sections on screen would probably be to take the Blender (the open source modeling application) and apply it to the entire OS. I'm sure there's somebody who already made it on Linux if you want to deal with figuring out how to make it run... but I'd really like to see it on Mac OS or Windows.
Microsoft has kind of lead the way here, with window snapping in Windows 7 (and they silently expanded that a bit in Windows 10) but they haven't bitten the bullet and just killed the ability to arbitrarily allow windows to overlap each other.
No reason they can’t use their own CPU designs for fanless models like the MacBook and MacBook Air. They would absolutely crush the Intel alternative.
For Pro models with active cooling they should stick with Intel, if nothing else for VM and Boot Camp options.
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Personally I think the iOS Twitter app sucks. It is clunky, doesn't remember where you were last, and basically is a PITA to use. I don't see having that garbage ported to my Mac as a PLUS.
Unlike many people I don't use Twitter for personal socializing. I use it exclusively to track major incidents like major, catastrophic weather events, etc. Twitter is a great platform from which to gather a lot of real time data and information directly from the sources rather than having to wait for it to be filtered and altered by idiots in the news media. It lets me do the filtering and analyzing for myself. But without a good app or website that can be a PITA. The current iOS app really sux at it.
Unlike many people I don't use Twitter for personal socializing. I use it exclusively to track major incidents like major, catastrophic weather events, etc. Twitter is a great platform from which to gather a lot of real time data and information directly from the sources rather than having to wait for it to be filtered and altered by idiots in the news media. It lets me do the filtering and analyzing for myself. But without a good app or website that can be a PITA. The current iOS app really sux at it.
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RE: "We are excited that Project Catalyst will enable us to bring Twitter back to the Mac by leveraging our existing iOS codebase."
TWTR, you have a market cap of $27.8B USD !
Many companies much smaller than you have figured out how to make Native Mac apps !
TWTR, you have a market cap of $27.8B USD !
Many companies much smaller than you have figured out how to make Native Mac apps !
Yeah, I don't believe that Intel powered Macs are going away in the short term either. But I do think we'll see ARM on some Mac products where efficiency is a must.
And from my point of view, the 12" Macbook is the perfect candidate to adopt the first "desktop class" Apple SoC. Currently it's the only truly passively cooled Mac, Intel CoreM processors are insanely expensive (this is a loss for Apple, while a custom ARM processor could cost just 20/30$), the lineup is not aimed at professionals, it's been years since it's last update, it has a small battery and need a low consumption processing unit, it doesn't have Thunderbolt 3 so it won't be missed if the next one doesn't have that connection... Etc
Eventually, the laptop lineup will slowly adopt Apple "desktop" SoC, with the exception maybe of the Pro machines. On the iMacs? We'll see, but it makes sense to me, now that we have an iMac Pro, that regular iMacs will move into custom Apple designed ARM chips, while the iPad Pro will retain the X86 CPU. Same with Mac Pro. And the mini? I think the mini is now oriented towards the professional customer, so my bet is the mini will still be Intel.
Just because it was ported thanks to project Catalyst and a Twitter macOS official app was missing since some time. It is a positive news even if I bought Twitterrific for both iOS and tvOS. Most non geek users will download official client.
They already had the best Twitter client, Tweetie, and broke it. So please, don't let them buy anything else decent. Not unless it's in preparation for just shutting down all the clients. TapBots might as well get something in that case.
Rather, the worst thing that's ever happened to the mac.
Now we can have crap-UI, limited-functionality galore.
Why bother writing a proper mac app that takes advantage of all the mac features when you can just code for what sells the most (iPhone) tick a checkbox and be like "oooh look, we have a mac app too!"
Apple is working this 2 ways: by making it very easy to make iOS-apps available on the mac, and making it harder and harder to run non-app-store-apps on the mac. For every iteration of macOS, there are more hoops to jump through and security settings to change to be able to run "any" app on your mac.
I fully understand what Apple wants to do here, but I'm not certain it actually benefits the mac.
When apps are the same as on the iPad, cost the same, look the same, have the same functionality, why bother with a mac? And with fewer people buying macs, the less effort will be put in to make the mac a mac, and not "iPad Pro with built in keyboard".
And making it harder and harder to do "whatever" on your mac, the less developers will love it as they have over the last 15 years. Web developers at my work are leaving for Ubuntu now, they are turned away by all the hassle.
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Yup, unaltered lies and desinformation, straight from the Russian troll factories. Great!
There is nothing but pro- and anti-Trump stuff on there. Really no point installing this on my Mac
Your sense of the Mac environment couldn't be more wrong. Catalyst will allow a ton of apps which wouldn't be on the Mac to come to the Mac. The iOS App Store is enormous and if like 5% of them became available on Mac, the platform would thrive again. The fact is, there are FAR more great iOS apps that would be great on Mac than there are Apps which will be completely rewritten in macOS.
Overall, it's an enormous net positive.
But will it have live streaming feeds?? This is something I've really missed from all Twitter clients for the past year and a half when the API was removed. I loved having a little window at the corner of my display showing me a live feed of posts. I haven't really used Twitter on my Mac since that went away,
The website is an app layer for the Web. The App Client for desktop is a traditional application layer for the desktop, and in this case for iOS/iPadOS/macOS.
The back end is unified with each layer leveraging what it can based upon the limitations of the paradigm.
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People would rather whine then bother to even read just this overview:
https://developer.apple.com/ipad-apps-for-mac/
Documentation:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/creating_a_mac_version_of_your_ipad_app
You're not contradicting them, though. You're outlining the reality, but that doesn't mean it can't be criticized.
Twitter is a 3,900-employee media company. They can afford two or three developers who make a Mac app. Would they prefer to spare the expense? Sure. Will users get a subpar experience as a result? You can bet on it.
A Catalyst Mac app is better than no Mac app. But when two independent companies can afford to make an AppKit Mac app, so can Twitter.
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Probably?
Unfortunately, Twitter likes to punish third-party devs. Their own app doesn't have to play by those rules.
I think that's too naive. Brichter quit a couple years later, didn't he? And the app was already getting worse with each release.
Either way, the problem wasn't with the app failing to get better. It was that it got worse. They didn't do nothing, they did the wrong things. Their problem clearly wasn't with the actual developers but with the goals (presumably, handed down from management).
So, you're saying the Mac platform is not thriving? Go back 20 years and see what it was like being mac user.
I can't say I've wanted more apps on the Mac (the last 5 years), possibly better apps.
Converting apps not meant for the desktop is not gonna make better apps just more apps. And we all know quantity does not equal quality.
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To me this is the crux of the issue. Is software in macland so depleted that even a company as big as twitter cant be bothered to have a couple programmers make an app?
To me this is the crux of the issue. Is software in macland so depleted that even a company as big as twitter cant be bothered to have a couple programmers make an app?
The app environment on Mac simply does not compare to iOS at this point.
So no, iOS has severely cannibalized the Mac development community. Mac has been an afterthought to Apple for years.