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For those of us that aren't keeping track: "Marzipan is the code name for the technology that will allow iOS developers, with just a handful of modifications, t

For those of us that aren't keeping track: "Marzipan is the code name for the technology that will allow iOS developers, with just a handful of modifications, to port the iOS versions of their apps over to the Mac." [0] At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS. But I guess getting a bad version of an app is better than nothing at all. I hate the whole mobile-first trend, since it usually means fucking over desktop users. Remember multi-window apps? Now everyone seems set on forcing everything to be done from a single window. [0] https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/09/macos-10-14-mojave-the-ars-technica-review/7/#h1 https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/09/macos-10-14-mojave-...

scarface74 8y ago
At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS The entire purpose of porting these apps to the Mac was to dog food Marzipan. If they had made “proper Mac apps” that would have defeated the purpose.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  IMO that's a poor excuse; that's just tantamount to shipping your org chart. You ship the best product for your customers, and if the technology you've pre-selected as a vehicle actively precludes you from doing so, STOP, and re-consider what you're up to. Focus on the user, not management needs, not artificial technology limitations. Otherwise, you won't have users.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    It was never about the apps. It’s about getting feedback from customers and developers and iterating. Google has been shipping “beta” software for years. It’s not like any of the apps they chose are core parts of the OS.
    - eloisant 8y ago
      Apple is not Google.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    In the long term, it's better if Marzipan gets real-world usage from some less-critical apps than Apple shipping a half-baked SDK to developers next year with a great, native Home app.
- lloeki 8y ago
  I suppose what the GP meant is that Apple, even if using Marzipan, was in power to do the job properly, from menubar to titlebar to modals and set a standard for developers to follow, instead of going the lazy route and have what appears to be mere containers of an iOS experience with only slight touches of macOS. It really does make me think of Electron, with foreign conventions held within a window and tentacles reaching out to some APIs like menubar and notifications.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    They basically said at WWDC that Marzipan is still a work in progress. They haven’t even promised a date when it would be released. Isn’t it better to release early and often and get feedback? It’s basically a “technology preview”. It would be much worse if they thought they were releasing a fully baked framework in a year, tied down the APIs and be stuck with something that got negative feedback. It’s strange that a forum that usually supports “development in the open” is now criticizing Apple for doing just that.
raydev 8y ago
> At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS From people with experience in both, UIKit is better designed than AppKit. Apple sees this and I think it's pretty clear their intent is for UIKit to supersede AppKit on macOS. One day. Apple unfortunately shipped what is effectively the alpha version to the public.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > From people with experience in both, UIKit is better designed than AppKit. Debatable. AppKit might have a bunch of legacy cruft, but it also has some truly beautiful things like bindings, or how certain interface controls work. It's a much more mature framework.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    Bindings (and KVO/KVC that support them) are magic-oriented programming that make me sad. One has to assume they very specifically didn't make the cut when iOS and UIKit were designed :P
  - therockhead 8y ago
    Interesting, i found bindings only useful for the most basic of UI and not really worth the effort.
- TheAceOfHearts 8y ago
  > From people with experience in both, UIKit is better designed than AppKit. Can you expand on this? I haven't done iOS development, so I'd be interested in what ways people consider UIKit superior. Although it wouldn't surprise me, since it came much later than AppKit and they had hindsight when designing it.
  - GeekyBear 8y ago
    The topic of making UIKit available to developers on the Mac comes up from time to time. People seem to go back and forth on it, as in this post from a couple of years ago. >The thing is, UIKit "just works" (most of the time at least). AppKit has so much historical garbage that it's become a pain to work with for modern macOS apps. It's still really hard to make simple things like customizing system controls and Core Animation doesn't work as well on it as it does on UIKit. https://medium.com/@guilhermerambo/why-uikit-for-macos-is-important-ff4e74a82cf0 https://medium.com/@guilhermerambo/why-uikit-for-macos-is-im...
coldtea 8y ago
>At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS. It's not about putting resources for their own apps or not. It's about enabling this route to macOS for iOS developers. They're just eating their own dogfood. >Remember multi-window apps? Now everyone seems set on forcing everything to be done from a single window. That's what most people want anyway. Not to have to manage 5 panels and sub-windows for each app on top of managing their apps. Microsoft did the same, Adobe, etc.
masklinn 8y ago
> At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS. I'm confused. The resources already exist, it's called "implementing applications on macOS". Marzipan is for iOS devs who want their existing application quickly running on macOS without actually porting it, either because there's some demand and they don't want to do macOS development or as a prelude to a proper port/cross-platform implementation. Apple can't magick the void into the not-void, an iOS application works on different principles than a macOS one.

scarface74 8y ago

At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS The entire purpose of porting these apps to the Mac was to dog food Marzipan. If they had made “proper Mac apps” that would have defeated the purpose.

arcticbull 8y ago
IMO that's a poor excuse; that's just tantamount to shipping your org chart. You ship the best product for your customers, and if the technology you've pre-selected as a vehicle actively precludes you from doing so, STOP, and re-consider what you're up to. Focus on the user, not management needs, not artificial technology limitations. Otherwise, you won't have users.
- scarface74 8y ago
  It was never about the apps. It’s about getting feedback from customers and developers and iterating. Google has been shipping “beta” software for years. It’s not like any of the apps they chose are core parts of the OS.
  - eloisant 8y ago
    Apple is not Google.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  In the long term, it's better if Marzipan gets real-world usage from some less-critical apps than Apple shipping a half-baked SDK to developers next year with a great, native Home app.
lloeki 8y ago
I suppose what the GP meant is that Apple, even if using Marzipan, was in power to do the job properly, from menubar to titlebar to modals and set a standard for developers to follow, instead of going the lazy route and have what appears to be mere containers of an iOS experience with only slight touches of macOS. It really does make me think of Electron, with foreign conventions held within a window and tentacles reaching out to some APIs like menubar and notifications.
- scarface74 8y ago
  They basically said at WWDC that Marzipan is still a work in progress. They haven’t even promised a date when it would be released. Isn’t it better to release early and often and get feedback? It’s basically a “technology preview”. It would be much worse if they thought they were releasing a fully baked framework in a year, tied down the APIs and be stuck with something that got negative feedback. It’s strange that a forum that usually supports “development in the open” is now criticizing Apple for doing just that.

raydev 8y ago

> At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS From people with experience in both, UIKit is better designed than AppKit. Apple sees this and I think it's pretty clear their intent is for UIKit to supersede AppKit on macOS. One day. Apple unfortunately shipped what is effectively the alpha version to the public.

saagarjha 8y ago
> From people with experience in both, UIKit is better designed than AppKit. Debatable. AppKit might have a bunch of legacy cruft, but it also has some truly beautiful things like bindings, or how certain interface controls work. It's a much more mature framework.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  Bindings (and KVO/KVC that support them) are magic-oriented programming that make me sad. One has to assume they very specifically didn't make the cut when iOS and UIKit were designed :P
- therockhead 8y ago
  Interesting, i found bindings only useful for the most basic of UI and not really worth the effort.
TheAceOfHearts 8y ago
> From people with experience in both, UIKit is better designed than AppKit. Can you expand on this? I haven't done iOS development, so I'd be interested in what ways people consider UIKit superior. Although it wouldn't surprise me, since it came much later than AppKit and they had hindsight when designing it.
- GeekyBear 8y ago
  The topic of making UIKit available to developers on the Mac comes up from time to time. People seem to go back and forth on it, as in this post from a couple of years ago. >The thing is, UIKit "just works" (most of the time at least). AppKit has so much historical garbage that it's become a pain to work with for modern macOS apps. It's still really hard to make simple things like customizing system controls and Core Animation doesn't work as well on it as it does on UIKit. https://medium.com/@guilhermerambo/why-uikit-for-macos-is-important-ff4e74a82cf0 https://medium.com/@guilhermerambo/why-uikit-for-macos-is-im...

coldtea 8y ago

>At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS. It's not about putting resources for their own apps or not. It's about enabling this route to macOS for iOS developers. They're just eating their own dogfood. >Remember multi-window apps? Now everyone seems set on forcing everything to be done from a single window. That's what most people want anyway. Not to have to manage 5 panels and sub-windows for each app on top of managing their apps. Microsoft did the same, Adobe, etc.

masklinn 8y ago

> At least it's better than Electron, I guess. It seems ridiculous that Apple wouldn't put up the resources to implement these apps properly on macOS. I'm confused. The resources already exist, it's called "implementing applications on macOS". Marzipan is for iOS devs who want their existing application quickly running on macOS without actually porting it, either because there's some demand and they don't want to do macOS development or as a prelude to a proper port/cross-platform implementation. Apple can't magick the void into the not-void, an iOS application works on different principles than a macOS one.