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Some people have been clamouring for a way to run iOS apps on an Mac for a long time, and now here it is. When Marzipan was first announced, Apple was very car

Some people have been clamouring for a way to run iOS apps on an Mac for a long time, and now here it is. When Marzipan was first announced, Apple was very careful to temper people's expectations. Marzipan is not about some grand new cross-platform development framework. It's not about merging Mac and iOS. It's about allowing iOS developers to port certain iOS apps to the Mac with as little friction as possible. And in that sense it's a complete success. Many 3rd-party apps can already run inside of Marzipan with little or no code changes. That's a huge win. There are some very obvious downsides. Most iOS apps are a poor fit on the desktop and won't conform to the expected Mac desktop expectations. I suppose Apple could have gone the Windows 8 route and put these iOS apps in a completely separate environment, but we all know how that turned out on Windows. At least these apps attempt to mesh with the regular desktop environment. Another downside is that it's a hack. These are pure iOS apps running inside of an iOS simulator designed to look like a Mac app. These apps have no access to the world outside of iOS. If you're looking to make a great modern Mac app, Marzipan isn't for you. If you're looking for an easier way to share UI code between your AppKit and UIKit apps, Marzipan has nothing for you. If you have a relatively simple iOS app that you think might be useful on a Mac, Marzipan is exactly what you've been waiting for. If you want a peek into what a grand new cross-platform development framework might be, take a look at the JetEngine.framework embedded in the Mac App Store app. It appears to be a separate UI framework that is neither AppKit nor UIKit, but can run on top of either. However, it's full of App Store-specific UI components and I would expect that it was developed only for internal use at Apple.

saagarjha 8y ago
The App Store app isn't particularly great, either. There are many UI paradigms it ends up breaking, and of course, it still goes for that sidebar/main window layout that all the Marzipan apps use.
- sephoric 8y ago
  Apples been trying to push the sidebar thing for a few years now on general Mac apps. It started as an evolution of the Finder sidebar and was named “source lists” for a short while and now it’s just called Sidebar in the default View too menu for new apps. Every time I go to use Notes on Mac I get confused by the two sidebars. Hopefully they calm down on their sidebar mania a bit soon. The web is a great proving ground for hierarchical organization of widgets and information, and I hope Apple can be humble and take notes from conventions that are popping up and sticking around about how to do “multiple sidebars” a little smarter.
  - mycelium 8y ago
    Any particular sites/webapps you like as examples of hierarchical design? I am a tech lead and struggle to come up with anything better than Material Design's nav drawers with sub-items, or equivalent.
    - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
      Not the OP, but one thing that springs to mind when talking UIs and web/native is the use of breadcrumbs online. For example, if seeing a list of all other notes in the same folder isn't a key use case, an alternative could be to hide that list but make it visible when activating the list's parent. This reduces the noise so the individual note can be focussed on. Having said that, I suspect the use cases of notes are quite varied, so a one-size-fits-all approach might not be straightforward.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Every time I go to use Notes on Mac I get confused by the two sidebars. You mean the actual sidebar (with the top level note folders) and the notes list? That has been the norm in 99% of note apps (and similar 'bucket' apps) for ages, across platforms...
- coldtea 8y ago
  >and of course, it still goes for that sidebar/main window layout that all the Marzipan apps use. So?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    It's not a particularly inspired design; for whatever reason it just seems really out-of-place to me. I know there are some apps that utilize the sidebar/main window thing, but they all feel like native Cocoa apps while these have different spacing, search fields, etc.
    - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
      It's more about the UI than the specific layout; no-one ever complains about Finder's 'uninspired' sidebar/main content layout. The inconsistencies which make the App Store feel alien on the Mac are what gets me. Also, I don't know if it's just me, but the App Store seems almost entirely keyboard-unaccessible.
- lloeki 8y ago
  I much prefer the new MAS than the old one, which was a poor WebView hackfest. That one feels more native than the brand new News/Stocks/Voice Memos apps, as described in the article: search box roundrects are correct, search focus and clear behaviours are consistent, titlebars are displaying content title, not app name. There are a number of buttons that do follow iOS style though. Also, "Redeem" and "View information" open up views that were previously unavailable except through iTunes, and you can see a mishmash of styles there too. The two things that infuriate me though are the font size of the sidebar, and the laughably placed "Done" button on the top right when you're viewing a story.
GeekyBear 8y ago
When Apple rewrote iPhoto as the Photos application a few years ago, they used a private framework called UXKit that also implements UIKit on the Mac. They've been working on this for a while. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/02/05/photos-mac-uxkit/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/02/05/photos-mac-uxkit/
- saagarjha 8y ago
  It doesn't implement UIKit; it provides a shim on top of AppKit that makes the API look similar to UIKit.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  Apple always had UIKit working on the Mac, the iOS device emulator runs it.
arcticbull 8y ago
App Store is an awful app experience, just like iTunes, because they both feel like they're just rendering XML that comes down from a server instead of being a real UI implementation. Everything's slow and laggy under the best of internet connectivity circumstances, and once you leave the beaten path it's just excruciating.
- lifty 8y ago
  The new app store in Mojave seems fast and snappy. I agree about the previous version though.
  - dbbk 8y ago
    I think the old App Store literally was just a WebView, since you could see overscroll shadows. Now it seems to be much closer to 'real UI' dynamically rendered by the remote data.
    - ssijak 8y ago
      Not sure about the App Store but when you get into the preferences -> icloud -> manage you can right click on that window and "inspect element" and safari debugging window will pop up :)
    - lloeki 8y ago
      It definitely was, rubber banding had the exact same bugs and performance issues than Safari had (which have since been fixed).
- coldtea 8y ago
  Parent specifically talks about the new App Store and it's new engine. Also, the App Store is a client for remote data (what's on the store). What should one expect to see when there's no connectivity? A local cache of all app data? That could be feasible, but also not very useful (you still can't buy or download) and might be misleading (e.g. an update might have been added or taken down etc).
therockhead 8y ago
>These are pure iOS apps running inside of an iOS simulator designed to look like a Mac app. These apps have no access to the world outside of iOS. If you mean the current 4 iOS app running on 10.14, then i agree. If you mean project Marzipan in general and what it means to developers, well we just don't know yet. Its going to be the next WWDC at the earliest before we hear any new information on the topic and its overall goals/capabilities are yet to be fully defined.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  It’s a bit sad; Apple is setting the standard here and it stinks. That’s how we ended up with having to accept Electron apps.
coldtea 8y ago
>These apps have no access to the world outside of iOS. Well, they can save files (like Apple's own audio notes app), connect to the network, and so on. So what access do they lack? They're not on the same direct kernel? That's probably for the better.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > They're not on the same direct kernel? They are on the same kernel. As far as I'm aware, they're in the same namespace as well, so this isn't just a simulator, either.
- ptx 8y ago
  One article mentioned that dragging something to the desktop causes the app to block/freeze for several seconds. Having access is not enough on its own - it also has to be reasonably performant and not too glitchy.
  - lloeki 8y ago
    The Photos app has the same kind of behaviour when dragging photos. You'd be hard pressed to select a bunch of photos/videos and drag&drop them anywhere but on a folder (typically the desktop). Even then, copying them seems to trigger an "export" process (sometimes you see a progress bar or something with that label to that effect, I can't recall right now) that takes ages. Alternatively, you can "Reveal in Finder" and copy/drag/whatever the photos/videos from there and it's instantaneous.
    - kiliankoe 8y ago
      Even though it still triggers an export, this behavior has gotten a lot better in Mojave. Whereas previously one could only really drop images on Finder windows (Desktop counts as well) it now works in many different applications. Not quite everywhere, but at least it works most of the time and I don't just not even try it.
gerardnll 8y ago
To me it looks like a time saver with mediocre results. Easy and fast, but not great.
oflannabhra 8y ago
Do you have any more info on Jetengine.framework ?
- RubenSandwich 8y ago
  This is all the references I could find to it in the OS X header dump: https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macOS/PrivateFrameworks/Jet/1/JetView.h https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macO... https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macOS/Applications/App%20Store/1/_TtP12JetEngineMac19JetTraitEnvironment_-Protocol.h https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macO...
toyg 8y ago
Electron started as a similar “simulator”, and look at it now. This thing will be massively popular once mature. Whether that’s a good thing for MacOS in the long run, I don’t know.

saagarjha 8y ago

The App Store app isn't particularly great, either. There are many UI paradigms it ends up breaking, and of course, it still goes for that sidebar/main window layout that all the Marzipan apps use.

sephoric 8y ago
Apples been trying to push the sidebar thing for a few years now on general Mac apps. It started as an evolution of the Finder sidebar and was named “source lists” for a short while and now it’s just called Sidebar in the default View too menu for new apps. Every time I go to use Notes on Mac I get confused by the two sidebars. Hopefully they calm down on their sidebar mania a bit soon. The web is a great proving ground for hierarchical organization of widgets and information, and I hope Apple can be humble and take notes from conventions that are popping up and sticking around about how to do “multiple sidebars” a little smarter.
- mycelium 8y ago
  Any particular sites/webapps you like as examples of hierarchical design? I am a tech lead and struggle to come up with anything better than Material Design's nav drawers with sub-items, or equivalent.
  - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
    Not the OP, but one thing that springs to mind when talking UIs and web/native is the use of breadcrumbs online. For example, if seeing a list of all other notes in the same folder isn't a key use case, an alternative could be to hide that list but make it visible when activating the list's parent. This reduces the noise so the individual note can be focussed on. Having said that, I suspect the use cases of notes are quite varied, so a one-size-fits-all approach might not be straightforward.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Every time I go to use Notes on Mac I get confused by the two sidebars. You mean the actual sidebar (with the top level note folders) and the notes list? That has been the norm in 99% of note apps (and similar 'bucket' apps) for ages, across platforms...
coldtea 8y ago
>and of course, it still goes for that sidebar/main window layout that all the Marzipan apps use. So?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  It's not a particularly inspired design; for whatever reason it just seems really out-of-place to me. I know there are some apps that utilize the sidebar/main window thing, but they all feel like native Cocoa apps while these have different spacing, search fields, etc.
  - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
    It's more about the UI than the specific layout; no-one ever complains about Finder's 'uninspired' sidebar/main content layout. The inconsistencies which make the App Store feel alien on the Mac are what gets me. Also, I don't know if it's just me, but the App Store seems almost entirely keyboard-unaccessible.
lloeki 8y ago
I much prefer the new MAS than the old one, which was a poor WebView hackfest. That one feels more native than the brand new News/Stocks/Voice Memos apps, as described in the article: search box roundrects are correct, search focus and clear behaviours are consistent, titlebars are displaying content title, not app name. There are a number of buttons that do follow iOS style though. Also, "Redeem" and "View information" open up views that were previously unavailable except through iTunes, and you can see a mishmash of styles there too. The two things that infuriate me though are the font size of the sidebar, and the laughably placed "Done" button on the top right when you're viewing a story.

GeekyBear 8y ago

When Apple rewrote iPhoto as the Photos application a few years ago, they used a private framework called UXKit that also implements UIKit on the Mac. They've been working on this for a while. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/02/05/photos-mac-uxkit/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/02/05/photos-mac-uxkit/

saagarjha 8y ago
It doesn't implement UIKit; it provides a shim on top of AppKit that makes the API look similar to UIKit.
tinus_hn 8y ago
Apple always had UIKit working on the Mac, the iOS device emulator runs it.

arcticbull 8y ago

App Store is an awful app experience, just like iTunes, because they both feel like they're just rendering XML that comes down from a server instead of being a real UI implementation. Everything's slow and laggy under the best of internet connectivity circumstances, and once you leave the beaten path it's just excruciating.

lifty 8y ago
The new app store in Mojave seems fast and snappy. I agree about the previous version though.
- dbbk 8y ago
  I think the old App Store literally was just a WebView, since you could see overscroll shadows. Now it seems to be much closer to 'real UI' dynamically rendered by the remote data.
  - ssijak 8y ago
    Not sure about the App Store but when you get into the preferences -> icloud -> manage you can right click on that window and "inspect element" and safari debugging window will pop up :)
  - lloeki 8y ago
    It definitely was, rubber banding had the exact same bugs and performance issues than Safari had (which have since been fixed).
coldtea 8y ago
Parent specifically talks about the new App Store and it's new engine. Also, the App Store is a client for remote data (what's on the store). What should one expect to see when there's no connectivity? A local cache of all app data? That could be feasible, but also not very useful (you still can't buy or download) and might be misleading (e.g. an update might have been added or taken down etc).

therockhead 8y ago

>These are pure iOS apps running inside of an iOS simulator designed to look like a Mac app. These apps have no access to the world outside of iOS. If you mean the current 4 iOS app running on 10.14, then i agree. If you mean project Marzipan in general and what it means to developers, well we just don't know yet. Its going to be the next WWDC at the earliest before we hear any new information on the topic and its overall goals/capabilities are yet to be fully defined.

tinus_hn 8y ago
It’s a bit sad; Apple is setting the standard here and it stinks. That’s how we ended up with having to accept Electron apps.

coldtea 8y ago

>These apps have no access to the world outside of iOS. Well, they can save files (like Apple's own audio notes app), connect to the network, and so on. So what access do they lack? They're not on the same direct kernel? That's probably for the better.

saagarjha 8y ago
> They're not on the same direct kernel? They are on the same kernel. As far as I'm aware, they're in the same namespace as well, so this isn't just a simulator, either.
ptx 8y ago
One article mentioned that dragging something to the desktop causes the app to block/freeze for several seconds. Having access is not enough on its own - it also has to be reasonably performant and not too glitchy.
- lloeki 8y ago
  The Photos app has the same kind of behaviour when dragging photos. You'd be hard pressed to select a bunch of photos/videos and drag&drop them anywhere but on a folder (typically the desktop). Even then, copying them seems to trigger an "export" process (sometimes you see a progress bar or something with that label to that effect, I can't recall right now) that takes ages. Alternatively, you can "Reveal in Finder" and copy/drag/whatever the photos/videos from there and it's instantaneous.
  - kiliankoe 8y ago
    Even though it still triggers an export, this behavior has gotten a lot better in Mojave. Whereas previously one could only really drop images on Finder windows (Desktop counts as well) it now works in many different applications. Not quite everywhere, but at least it works most of the time and I don't just not even try it.

gerardnll 8y ago

To me it looks like a time saver with mediocre results. Easy and fast, but not great.

oflannabhra 8y ago

Do you have any more info on Jetengine.framework ?

RubenSandwich 8y ago
This is all the references I could find to it in the OS X header dump: https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macOS/PrivateFrameworks/Jet/1/JetView.h https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macO... https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macOS/Applications/App%20Store/1/_TtP12JetEngineMac19JetTraitEnvironment_-Protocol.h https://github.com/w0lfschild/macOS_headers/blob/master/macO...

toyg 8y ago

Electron started as a similar “simulator”, and look at it now. This thing will be massively popular once mature. Whether that’s a good thing for MacOS in the long run, I don’t know.