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Is that an OS update? Do you really need iOS apps on the Mac? How about having decent apps in the actual native apps store?

asasidh 8y ago
This is the only way that they can make developers to care about putting more apps on the Mac AppStore.
wlesieutre 8y ago
Decent apps in the actual native store is what the UIKit port is about. It’s not iOS apps on the Mac any more than tvOS apps are iOS apps on the TV. You still need to adapt it to native UI conventions like the menu bar, you just won’t need to rebuild the entire UI from the ground up in AppKit anymore.
- janlukacs 8y ago
  Let me put it another way, when was the last time you heard a user ask for an iOS app to be on the Mac? Is this what Mac users want or is it something that Apple wants?
  - mattkevan 8y ago
    Me. It’s something I want. I love apps that allow me to work on an iPad while I'm on the tube, then pick right up where I left off on the desktop. It’s the best of both worlds. A good example is Bear Writer[0], a Markdown-based writing and notes app. The Mac app, while fully featured, is based on Electron. Without knowing anything about this new system I’d think these changes would allow the developers to create a native Mac app at least as easily as an Electron web app. [0] http://www.bear-writer.com http://www.bear-writer.com
  - matthewmacleod 8y ago
    I'm right here, as both a user and a developer, and would really like more native apps on the Mac. A unified platform to make it easier for developers to build apps across both platforms seems like an incredibly obvious win.
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    Users, absolutely. Some apps have already done this (Deliveries and Paprika Recipe Manager come to mind). But it's a ton of duplicated effort right now to do that. Paprika's Mac version costs $30 to compensate. There's much less competition here; iOS has a bunch of recipe managers but as far as I know this is the only one with a companion Mac version. Maybe Facebook will make a Mac client for Messenger (messenger.com works, but some people might prefer a desktop version). Maybe Netflix will have a Mac client (they already have one in the Windows store). We could get Google Maps as an alternative to Apple's native Maps app. Slack could throw away their Electron battery-guzzler and replace the Mac version with one based on the native iOS codebase. Not every app wants or needs a Mac port, but there are plenty of cases where it could be useful.
  - always_good 8y ago
    >when was the last time you heard a user ask for an iOS app to be on the Mac This is something pretty much everyone I know wants that has had both a Mac and iPhone. There are great iPhone apps and they usually don't have a Mac version. You're stuck whipping out your phone to use some app even though you're already using your laptop.
dewey 8y ago
Why do you need a major OS update every year? It's been a few years now that they are incremental with small improvements and fixes and not major changes that force people to change the way they use the system. They obviously can't put all the under-the-hood changes on the slides as there's probably a ton of stability fixes and hardening going on behind the scenes. There are good iOS apps for a lot of things, if they can easily be adapted to run on the Mac as they demonstrated by porting the News app it can only be good for the ecosystem. The apps won't look like they are running in an iOS simulator and you use a mouse pointer to do touch actions. It'll be a normal native app that shares code with iOS.
ljm 8y ago
I would assume it's more about making it more convenient for developers to build an app for iOS and macOS using similar frameworks and APIs, without depending on React Native or just throwing Electron and the web stack at the problem. From my own minimal experience you have to pull in a fair few dependencies or do quite a lot more work if you want a more modern look for a native Mac app. Additionally, if I want to bring an iOS app to the Mac, then it'd be great to not have to figure out the Cocoa version of a certain UIKit view and then rewrite all of the code to fit. I can't imagine this would translate to some next-level version of universal binaries, but who knows what it'll be like in a few years.
IOT_Apprentice 8y ago
If iOS has the dominant app platform, wouldn't making it easy to port to macOS be a good thing? You get to harness all those iOS app developers (who code on the mac anyway) able to have their apps run on both platforms. Seems like a win.

asasidh 8y ago

This is the only way that they can make developers to care about putting more apps on the Mac AppStore.

wlesieutre 8y ago

Decent apps in the actual native store is what the UIKit port is about. It’s not iOS apps on the Mac any more than tvOS apps are iOS apps on the TV. You still need to adapt it to native UI conventions like the menu bar, you just won’t need to rebuild the entire UI from the ground up in AppKit anymore.

janlukacs 8y ago
Let me put it another way, when was the last time you heard a user ask for an iOS app to be on the Mac? Is this what Mac users want or is it something that Apple wants?
- mattkevan 8y ago
  Me. It’s something I want. I love apps that allow me to work on an iPad while I'm on the tube, then pick right up where I left off on the desktop. It’s the best of both worlds. A good example is Bear Writer[0], a Markdown-based writing and notes app. The Mac app, while fully featured, is based on Electron. Without knowing anything about this new system I’d think these changes would allow the developers to create a native Mac app at least as easily as an Electron web app. [0] http://www.bear-writer.com http://www.bear-writer.com
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  I'm right here, as both a user and a developer, and would really like more native apps on the Mac. A unified platform to make it easier for developers to build apps across both platforms seems like an incredibly obvious win.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  Users, absolutely. Some apps have already done this (Deliveries and Paprika Recipe Manager come to mind). But it's a ton of duplicated effort right now to do that. Paprika's Mac version costs $30 to compensate. There's much less competition here; iOS has a bunch of recipe managers but as far as I know this is the only one with a companion Mac version. Maybe Facebook will make a Mac client for Messenger (messenger.com works, but some people might prefer a desktop version). Maybe Netflix will have a Mac client (they already have one in the Windows store). We could get Google Maps as an alternative to Apple's native Maps app. Slack could throw away their Electron battery-guzzler and replace the Mac version with one based on the native iOS codebase. Not every app wants or needs a Mac port, but there are plenty of cases where it could be useful.
- always_good 8y ago
  >when was the last time you heard a user ask for an iOS app to be on the Mac This is something pretty much everyone I know wants that has had both a Mac and iPhone. There are great iPhone apps and they usually don't have a Mac version. You're stuck whipping out your phone to use some app even though you're already using your laptop.

dewey 8y ago

Why do you need a major OS update every year? It's been a few years now that they are incremental with small improvements and fixes and not major changes that force people to change the way they use the system. They obviously can't put all the under-the-hood changes on the slides as there's probably a ton of stability fixes and hardening going on behind the scenes. There are good iOS apps for a lot of things, if they can easily be adapted to run on the Mac as they demonstrated by porting the News app it can only be good for the ecosystem. The apps won't look like they are running in an iOS simulator and you use a mouse pointer to do touch actions. It'll be a normal native app that shares code with iOS.

ljm 8y ago

I would assume it's more about making it more convenient for developers to build an app for iOS and macOS using similar frameworks and APIs, without depending on React Native or just throwing Electron and the web stack at the problem. From my own minimal experience you have to pull in a fair few dependencies or do quite a lot more work if you want a more modern look for a native Mac app. Additionally, if I want to bring an iOS app to the Mac, then it'd be great to not have to figure out the Cocoa version of a certain UIKit view and then rewrite all of the code to fit. I can't imagine this would translate to some next-level version of universal binaries, but who knows what it'll be like in a few years.

IOT_Apprentice 8y ago

If iOS has the dominant app platform, wouldn't making it easy to port to macOS be a good thing? You get to harness all those iOS app developers (who code on the mac anyway) able to have their apps run on both platforms. Seems like a win.