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I hear and also feel the pain. I've been doing multi-platform app development since the 90's, and keeping up with Apple is starting to feel like a fools game -

I hear and also feel the pain. I've been doing multi-platform app development since the 90's, and keeping up with Apple is starting to feel like a fools game - the work one has to do, just to stay on the platform and current with the vendor changes to the OS is very frustrating. Which is why I'm just going to use an engine-only approach from now on. I can, fortunately, eschew native UI's .. since I work on creative tools and my users prefer to have the same pixel-equivalent interface on each platform rather than shifting paradigms. I think that game engines are the future for all app development. There's not much I can't do in Unreal Engine, for example .. with the benefit that the same app truly runs everywhere. If Apple want to continue to subvert developer minds to keep them on the platform, fine by me. The engines see this as damage and easily allow a lot of us to route around the problem.

jbverschoor 7y ago
Good luck running 20 instances for some productivity apps.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Who runs 20 instances of an app? That just sounds like poor design. Anyway, I have no problems running multiple instances of a small and light UE-based app. Most I've had running on one machine is 5 .. but I'm not seeing the limitation you're indicating.
  - thesquib 7y ago
    Just open multiple windows in electron and you're there!
    - fit2rule 7y ago
      Electron is just poorly engineered software.
- thrower123 7y ago
  Good luck running 20 Electron apps...
- FpUser 7y ago
  Depending on design and particular engine/rendering library used there could be no problems at all. If we are talking say business UI on top of GPU accelerated graphics lib (no heavy 3d assets stuffed in regular and GPU RAM) you could run multiple instances with no problems.
threeseed 7y ago
Normally I would've said this comment was ridiculous. But Google did exactly this with Flutter i.e. using a game engine and I found the experience to be significantly better than native development. Not only are you guaranteed of the same behaviour across platforms but you end up with a smoother, more polished app faster. Definitely not suitable for every use case but for many it was impressive.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  From where I stand, Game Engines are the New OS™. UE even has its own compiler system built-in, ffs...
FpUser 7y ago
I am going multiplatform for my new GUI apps and I am actually considering game engines / rendering libs of which there are plenty.
- filleduchaos 7y ago
  You could consider taking a look at Flutter's approach (it's basically a UI SDK built up from scratch around Skia). It's entirely open source and likely contains some decent tips (and you can piggyback off the engine layer and bolt on a different language for scripting).

jbverschoor 7y ago

Good luck running 20 instances for some productivity apps.

fit2rule 7y ago
Who runs 20 instances of an app? That just sounds like poor design. Anyway, I have no problems running multiple instances of a small and light UE-based app. Most I've had running on one machine is 5 .. but I'm not seeing the limitation you're indicating.
- thesquib 7y ago
  Just open multiple windows in electron and you're there!
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    Electron is just poorly engineered software.
thrower123 7y ago
Good luck running 20 Electron apps...
FpUser 7y ago
Depending on design and particular engine/rendering library used there could be no problems at all. If we are talking say business UI on top of GPU accelerated graphics lib (no heavy 3d assets stuffed in regular and GPU RAM) you could run multiple instances with no problems.

threeseed 7y ago

Normally I would've said this comment was ridiculous. But Google did exactly this with Flutter i.e. using a game engine and I found the experience to be significantly better than native development. Not only are you guaranteed of the same behaviour across platforms but you end up with a smoother, more polished app faster. Definitely not suitable for every use case but for many it was impressive.

fit2rule 7y ago
From where I stand, Game Engines are the New OS™. UE even has its own compiler system built-in, ffs...

FpUser 7y ago

I am going multiplatform for my new GUI apps and I am actually considering game engines / rendering libs of which there are plenty.

filleduchaos 7y ago
You could consider taking a look at Flutter's approach (it's basically a UI SDK built up from scratch around Skia). It's entirely open source and likely contains some decent tips (and you can piggyback off the engine layer and bolt on a different language for scripting).