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This has been the story of Apple apps outside MacOS forever: they appear to always do the absolute minimum to claim support, and you end up with a super clunky

This has been the story of Apple apps outside MacOS forever: they appear to always do the absolute minimum to claim support, and you end up with a super clunky windows app that is terrible. I doubt they’d do much better using electron: I think their development model is that if it isn’t on one of their platforms, they pump out a minimum-effort, low quality app. I’d guess that electron ones would be just as clunky, except with a significantly higher memory and CPU footprint.

waboremo 4y ago
That hasn't really been true. Apple supported iTunes and Safari which were great options on Windows. Not just "I'm already an Apple fan so I have to use it", but actively deciding to use them. The root of the problem for Apple is that they cannot get away with doing what they used to in the past, they already have a plethora of platforms within their own umbrella to support, adding Windows native to the mix seems to result in maybe a handful of developers taking on enormous burdens by trying to catch up to their expected Mac apps. If Apple were to seriously put its weight behind a cross-platform toolkit, this might change, especially as they want their services to grow. It's the very reason why their main service competitors can even compete. But I agree that if they were to suddenly switch to Electron without a care it wouldn't turn out well, but likely have a better end user experience than their current reveals.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  So SwiftUI for Windows?
  - waboremo 4y ago
    Would be very interesting!
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    For QuickTime for Windows they ported a portion of the Classic Mac Toolbox to Windows to make it work. For Safari Windows they ported a portion of Cocoa. Having an internal Windows version of SwiftUI would not be unthinkable!
- lmm 4y ago
  > Apple supported iTunes and Safari which were great options on Windows. Not just "I'm already an Apple fan so I have to use it", but actively deciding to use them. No they weren't. They were notoriously awful. Apple resorted to bundling Safari with QuickTime to try to get you to use it but everyone still hated it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - emsixteen 4y ago
    Nonsense, iTunes was great and got stick just for being iTunes. 300GB library around that time with no issue at all. Smart Playlists made all other players obsolete for me.

waboremo 4y ago

That hasn't really been true. Apple supported iTunes and Safari which were great options on Windows. Not just "I'm already an Apple fan so I have to use it", but actively deciding to use them. The root of the problem for Apple is that they cannot get away with doing what they used to in the past, they already have a plethora of platforms within their own umbrella to support, adding Windows native to the mix seems to result in maybe a handful of developers taking on enormous burdens by trying to catch up to their expected Mac apps. If Apple were to seriously put its weight behind a cross-platform toolkit, this might change, especially as they want their services to grow. It's the very reason why their main service competitors can even compete. But I agree that if they were to suddenly switch to Electron without a care it wouldn't turn out well, but likely have a better end user experience than their current reveals.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
So SwiftUI for Windows?
- waboremo 4y ago
  Would be very interesting!
- kalleboo 4y ago
  For QuickTime for Windows they ported a portion of the Classic Mac Toolbox to Windows to make it work. For Safari Windows they ported a portion of Cocoa. Having an internal Windows version of SwiftUI would not be unthinkable!
lmm 4y ago
> Apple supported iTunes and Safari which were great options on Windows. Not just "I'm already an Apple fan so I have to use it", but actively deciding to use them. No they weren't. They were notoriously awful. Apple resorted to bundling Safari with QuickTime to try to get you to use it but everyone still hated it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- emsixteen 4y ago
  Nonsense, iTunes was great and got stick just for being iTunes. 300GB library around that time with no issue at all. Smart Playlists made all other players obsolete for me.