
Apple Plans Combined iPhone, iPad and Mac Apps to Create One User Experience - uptown
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-20/apple-is-said-to-have-plan-to-combine-iphone-ipad-and-mac-apps
======
baldajan
Anyone unfamiliar with how things currently work:

macOS and iOS use 2 different UI frameworks (CocoaTouch and UIKit,
respectively). And this causes problems when trying to compile the source code
between the two platforms. Ex: things like font and color are defined
specifically in each framework (NSFont and NSColor versus UIFont and UIColor).
If they combine these frameworks, it makes the design and maintenance of cross
platform software a lot easier (it'll still be difficult), and the at the very
least, you wouldn't have to stub out a bunch of class names and files.

BUT - the most important work is still on the developer to ensure that their
app runs great on iPhone, iPad and Mac and has a cohesive UI that scales and
takes advantages of the different technologies. It's no different from
Responsive Web Design or the shift from iPhone to iPad (and vice versa).

~~~
Duckton
Precisely. People thinking this is to create one UI for both platforms are
missing the point.

Just like you can have an app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, all with their
own UI to a more or less degree, you will now be able toinclude a macOS build
as well.

~~~
jobu
Shared Text and UI controls and libraries could be useful, but we need to
consider the "one UI" given the title of the article " _Apple Plans Combined
iPhone, iPad & Mac Apps to Create One User Experience_". That just screams
Marketing Department Overreach to me, and I've arguments about this exact
issue with sales and marketing people before.

The "one user experience" idea is a fallacy because the physical interfaces
are so much different. There are definitely overlaps with typical phones,
computers or TVs, but developers should embrace and accentuate the the
differences, not try to force everything to the lowest common denominator.

For example, an iPhone has limited text input because of a small screen where
the keyboard takes up almost half the space. However, it does have a great
camera and a shit ton of useful sensors that no computer or TV ever will.

~~~
wlesieutre
It's not like how apps get made is part of Apple's product marketing, if
anything it's their developer outreach.

My money is on this being a developer focused update to fix the
CocoaTouch/AppKit dichotomy, which will make it easier to develop a Mac
version of your software alongside the iOS, watchOS, and tvOS versions.
Spinning it as "combined iPhone and Mac apps" sounds like a misunderstanding
on the reporter's part.

iOS has gotten a really large developer following with a ton of great apps.
Not a lot of that has spilled back to the Mac side of things, but if the basic
toolkit were compatible it would be easier for iOS devs to make the jump.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I think it's more likely iOS apps will run in a sandboxed emulator on the Mac.
Xcode already does this, and it would trivial to build and bundle an emulated
app for MacOS with the standard iOS build.

I can't see real unification happening. The platforms are just too different -
not just physically, in terms of interface modality and available hardware,
but in terms of design culture. For the most part, iOS apps have very little
in common with Mac apps - and that will continue to be true even if Apple
releases a series of Tablet Macs as the next evolution of the iPad Pro.

Going the other way makes even less sense. All the big content creation apps
are monsters with hundreds of menu options and settings. There is zero chance
of being able to port a functionally equivalent version to a device with a
touch UI, a much smaller screen, and limited performance.

I hope this isn't based on a fantasy of being able to make everything look and
work like Photos or Apple's office clone - because that will mean dumbed down
apps on the Mac, and a total loss of faith in the Mac among professionals and
power users.

~~~
danudey
Xcode doesn't use an emulator. When you build for the _simulator_ it's
building an x86_64 binary that runs natively.

Also, to your other point (UI integration), my assumption is that you'll need
to make a different UI for macOS than you do for iPhones (you have to do the
same for iPads, IIRC, even if you're just creating a larger version of the
existing iPhone UI).

So if you have a simple way of handling it, you end up with all of your core
logic being shared between all versions, and multiple versions of the UI that
you just hook up to your existing controllers.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
But there's minimal non-trivial shared core logic, because the apps live in a
different user space and do different things with different end goals.

You can port a Mac DAW to iOS - e.g. Cubase to Cubasis - but it's no longer
the same product. Most of the features that make the desktop version so useful
in a professional context are lost in translation, because iOS doesn't have
the resources to support them.

So what do you gain by trying to merge development, except extra work and
possibly extra confusion.

------
untog
Well, I hope they can learn from Microsoft's total failure to do this.

To be honest, I don't see a persuasive argument. In order for this to be worth
the extra development time the company needs to have a big marketshare on both
platforms - MS failed because they had zero footprint on mobile, and I think
Apple will fail because they have a relatively small footprint on desktop. As
a third party developer, is it _really_ worth your time to make a native macOS
app when the web is already very capable? In some cases I'm sure it will, but
in the vast majority of cases you're going to need to make a web version
anyway (for the huge number of Windows desktops out there), so a native macOS
app just wouldn't be worth it.

~~~
xocyabencl
Microsoft failed because they had few developers for either the desktop or
mobile version of the framework. The countless Windows apps did not become
buildable on mobile. If Apple makes it easy to add OSX support to existing iOS
apps, they will have a lot of success.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
That, and the fact the new XAML UX framework can only be used by AppX apps
that run in the sandbox. “Normal”, otherwise unconstrained Win32 programs
can’t use it.

~~~
paulryanrogers
This decrease in capability seems to be a weakness with Mac App Store as well,
that and the ramp up from 0% to 30% of purchase price.

As a user I personally prefer more powerful software and a more financially
motivated developer; even when it makes buying more bespoke.

~~~
kartickv
What are some alternatives to Mac App Store that give the developer the same
services, like handling payment, including subscriptions, downloads, some DRM
to prevent casual copying and updates, for less than 30%?

Last I checked, I had to assemble the above from disparate services,
investigating each, integrating them, and paying for each, which doesn't seem
like a productive use of my time or money.

~~~
untog
That's not an answerable question in any universal way. 30% of what?

Assembling from disparate sources will have more of an upfront cost but cost
less per purchase. So it depends entirely on your sales volume.

~~~
kartickv
30% of the sale price, obviously.

Regarding your second point, interesting, seems like MAS is good to get
started until the app reaches a certain volume.

------
d--b
The lure of convergence again... that really didn't go so well for Microsoft.

I think that's something that really set Apple's iphone apart and that was
really smart.

The problem is the iPad. The iPad should be a mac, in my view, like the
Surface is a PC. Making the iPad a giant iPhone was a big mistake. Now people
make pro applications for the iPad Pro and they're thinking "shit I really
wish this could run on a mac" and now Apple is forced into some kind of
compatibility that goes from the iPhone 5s with touch screen to a iMac 4K with
touchpad.

~~~
saagarjha
> Making the iPad a giant iPhone was a big mistake.

I disagree. iPad is fundamentally a _touch_ device, and trying to shoehorn
macOS into this paradigm would have probably doomed iPad–remember, that's what
the competition was doing back before iPad, and you know how the sales of
those devices were…

~~~
kartickv
I agree with the post you responded to. I have a 13-inch iPad "Pro" that I'm
unhappy with since it doesn't do what it's promised to do. Can I build an iOS
app? An Android app? Upload 100GB of data to Google Drive? Play movies stored
on my external hard disc? Download Youtube videos for local playback, as some
Mac apps can do? And so on.

As far as I'm concerned the "big iPhone" idea is a failure. I don't want a
tablet that doesn't have the full power of a PC OS like macOS or Windows. That
doesn't preclude touch. The OS and apps could and should be updated to support
touch. And Apple has the market power to pull that off.

I want an OS with the full power of a PC OS + touch. You can get there by
taking a mobile OS and making it more powerful, or by taking a PC OS and
adding touch to the OS and apps. Yes, both options require a lot of work, but
Microsoft is further ahead in having shipped it for years rather than denying
the problem, as Apple does.

~~~
saagarjha
> [Can I] Upload 100GB of data to Google Drive?

Yes…is there something preventing you from doing so?

> Play movies stored on my external hard disc?

Well, you _could_ if your hard disc supported a format that iOS could
understand, such as a lightning cable, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.

> Download Youtube videos for local playback, as some Mac apps can do?

There are apps that let you do this.

> Can I build an iOS app? An Android app?

No, unfortunately you can't do this yet. This is one of the things that iPad
cannot do yet and I'm sure Apple is working on.

> The OS and apps could and should be updated to support touch.

This is an awful lot of work for developers…especially on Apple's platforms,
where bolt-on solutions are rare and most apps try to make full use of the
medium they have.

> I want an OS with the full power of a PC OS + touch. You can get there by
> taking a mobile OS and making it more powerful, or by taking a PC OS and
> adding touch to the OS and apps.

Yes, we all do–and Apple is doing this from the "taking a mobile OS and making
it more powerful" rather than "taking a PC OS and adding touch to the OS and
apps" as Microsoft is doing. My argument is that this is the better way to do
things, and the market seems to largely agree.

~~~
kartickv
> Yes…is there something preventing you from doing so?

Full multitasking, which is required for the hours or days it takes for such a
long upload, and ability to connect an external hard disc.

> if your hard disc supported a format that iOS could understand, such as a
> lightning cable, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.

Which is to say, hardly any of them.

> There are apps that let you do this.

Show me some that still work. I looked but couldn't find.

~~~
nkristoffersen
For the hard drive, I think you can use the USB dongle to connect a hard
drive. But you are right in that the multitasking probably doesn’t allow for
multi day upload. Haven’t tried it yet though.

------
bo1024
> _Developers currently must design two different apps -- one for iOS, the
> operating system of Apple’s mobile devices, and one for macOS, the system
> that runs Macs. That’s a lot more work._

One set of devices have ONLY a touchscreen as an interface. The other set of
devices have ONLY a keyboard and mouse.

So how will this create less work? I think it will mean that each app either
(a) bundles two essentially-different programs into one "application", or (b)
gives up on desktop usability. Sadly I expect (b) and I feel that Apple does
too, and doesn't mind.

~~~
fredley
Given that Apple seems to be following more and more industry trends, maybe
touchscreen Macs are coming?

~~~
ansgri
Also, they officially support a keyboard for iPad Pro. With recent
multitasking updates for iPad and considering positive reviews for the
keyboard, the Pro seems to be a serious contender for laptop replacement.

Recently got a Pro 10.5, and it's a fantastic device — seriously considering a
keyboard for office work.

~~~
AckSyn
iOS has supported keyboards for a very long time. right back to when they
first sold their 30-pin to USB "camera" adapter. You could definitely plug in
a keyboard and use it.

~~~
comex
Not just that, the first iPad had an official "keyboard dock" accessory - a
desktop-style keyboard with a built-in iPad stand and 30-pin connector:

[https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-ipad-keyboard-dock-
serie...](https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-ipad-keyboard-dock-
series/review/)

(For the record, this was in 2010, the same year the camera adapter you
mentioned was released, as well as OS support for Bluetooth keyboards.)

------
fredley
This is a complete 180 from the approach in the early iPhone, iPad days.
Everything was encouraged and often required to be made device-specific,
because the UX is subtly different. Apple followed this too, back in the heady
days of Skeumorphism. Even the shade of grey on the keyboard was different
between iPhone and iPad[1].

This is yet another indicator that Apple has changed drastically since the
Jobs days, and is moving more into alignment with other tech giants in their
approach to products.

[1]:
[https://ux.stackexchange.com/q/16369](https://ux.stackexchange.com/q/16369)

~~~
maxxxxx
Microsoft has been failing at unifying desktop apps with mobile apps for many
years with metro, UWP and whatever. Will be interesting if Apple can pull it
off.

~~~
lev99
Apple has already proved they can do major software transitions gracefully
with their adjustment from PowerPC to Intel.

~~~
saagarjha
For developers this transition was quite seamless, since most of the high-
level API functionality was still there. This isn't the case when you're
ripping out the current UI framework that every app uses.

------
digitalengineer
This won't help one bit. Seriously: Why do developers like those from Sketch
drop the Mac App Store? Here's why:
[https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/01/another-popular-app-
leaves...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/01/another-popular-app-leaves-the-
mac-app-store/) [http://blog.wilshipley.com/2012/03/mac-app-store-needs-
paid-...](http://blog.wilshipley.com/2012/03/mac-app-store-needs-paid-
upgrades.html) [https://www.dancounsell.com/a-wish-list-for-the-mac-app-
stor...](https://www.dancounsell.com/a-wish-list-for-the-mac-app-store/)
[https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/developers-keep-leaving-mac-
ap...](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/developers-keep-leaving-mac-app-store/)

~~~
Razengan
Speaking as a user, many developers are, pardon my French, shit, and will take
every mile for any inch given to them.

Look at the iOS App Store after Apple introduced subscriptions: Even the most
inane apps are now asking for monthly and yearly subscriptions.

Like, what is even the point of, say, a text editor having a monthly
subscription? _“To justify development costs”_ , they write elaborate blogs
about. Even though they used to be perfectly fine with a pay-once model for
years before. Even though everyone was perfectly happy with buying an
incrementally-numbered “Text Editor N” every year, _IF they needed to._

Some (like Day One I think) try to justify it by charging for features that
Apple can provide _for free_ , like iCloud Sync, and reinventing that wheel
with their own paid solutions for that.

As a user I was happier with the weekly blog whining about Apple’s draconian
walled garden, compared to this subscription-infested market now.

~~~
prawn
People expect updates once they've purchased an app for a few bucks. They tend
not to pay more, and developers who release v2 and v3 as completely separate
apps are often criticised. Not to mention, export/importing data can be a new
issue across apps.

An upgrade could be released as an IAP, but asking for more once you've
released a paid app is risky also.

I tend to avoid subscription software too, but I can fully understand why
developers lean towards it as a way of getting a strong return and justifying
further development, taking on staff for support, etc.

If the app isn't up to it, then consumers can find an alternative that can
scrape by with a single price, right?

~~~
Razengan
Pay-once apps compete with each other for my wallet only once. I can purchase
them all over a given period of time.

Subscription-based apps _constantly_ compete with EVERYTHING else that I have
to pay for every month.

If I’m already subscribing to many apps, it reduces the chances of me
subscribing to your app, _even if it does not directly compete with those apps
in the same category._ i.e. photo-editing apps start competing with text-
editing apps and games and music apps, _perpetually,_ if they all switch to a
subscription model. How is that sane?

If my monthly budget needs some breathing room and I [temporarily] cancel a
subscription, I lose features or even access to my existing data. It doesn’t
matter how long I had been paying for, not even if I had been a subscriber for
years before cancelling.

If developers demand a subscription model then users should demand a “loyalty”
perk, where you get to retain access to an app for N weeks after cancelling if
you had previously subscribed for X months.

Also, you’d think that with the total number of computing users increasing for
all platforms across the world, the overall sales of apps, or at least the
potential buyers to market to, must be increasing as well, compared to when we
didn’t even have subscriptions in the App Store.

~~~
checker659
Oh, ok. So, if your health insurance expires, you're still going to go ask for
coverage, because your insurance only expired two weeks back and you were on
it for the last 5 years?

~~~
sooheon
Try your best to step back and appreciate the differences between healthcare
coverage and apps.

------
pducks32
There are 2 parts of the apps. There's model layer and view layer. The model
layer is a pain to bring over because certain model objects (UIColor) are only
on one platform. So if they make changes to ease that then making a mac app
will become way easier.

The other problem is that AppKit is not as nice or as easy to use as UIKit in
my experience. If they can bring these two frameworks together under shared
functionality that would be great. For example, template Master-Detail from
iPhone to iPad is great (and you can always customize). So having that extend
to macOS would make mac development easier. I imagine this is what they are
planning.

The third idea is they are thinking of something greater yet separate that is
not meant for existing apps. Like a new UI Framework that works on both. This
seems hard to believe as they have the iOS app base and the goal is to bring
that over to mac not start a new app base altogether.

------
jawngee
As someone (apparently the only one in this thread) that writes macOS and iOS
apps, I can't wait for NSView and it's stupid lower-left cartesian coordinate
system to die.

UIKit is so much better in so many ways, it's time NSView and its friends are
all put out to pasture.

~~~
neonhomer
I've had many years of experience with iOS and then started working on a macOS
app a year or so ago. Everything seemed overly complicated compared to iOS
development.

I ended up using a web view and did a lot of front-end work via HTML to save
time!

~~~
tinus_hn
UIKit is much more limited than AppKit because it was meant to run on devices
with limited resources. In fact, people used to complain about all the things
you couldn't do on iOS devices that you could on the Mac.

------
marenkay
Convergence is overestimated.

As a users, I actually do not want an identical use experience of apps on
desktop and mobile devices because inherently these are different use cases
and it does not make sense to mix them. It's not even the same applications
that would be used on iPad as on macOS.

I doubt technology is an issue here. Universal binaries for macOS worked well
and that was a decade ago. It's the fundamental use cases for these devices
that differ and no development framework can bridge that, probably even
shouldn't.

~~~
blueprint
It sounds to me like you're actually saying your _experience_ with convergence
has been overrated vis-à-vis initial claims.

~~~
sooheon
By extension they could be saying that convergence is likely to incentivize
creation of those mediocre experiences.

------
gallerdude
Assuming they can pull this off in a very good way (a big assumption), I think
this is a smart move. This isn't just for tech illiterates, this is for pros.

Imagine if all new software created was immediately available on iPad - that'd
be huge. People have been talking about the lack of pro-grade video editors,
vector art painters, and programming environments on iOS for a while now. This
_could_ be really interesting.

~~~
egypturnash
I sure wouldn't hold my breath for any Adobe products to get on board with
this, they've put all of one app (Photoshop Elements) on the Mac App Store so
far.

~~~
saagarjha
I wouldn't be so sure. Adobe has a rather large presence on the iOS App Store,
and they're frequently featured as early adopters of whatever new technology
Apple rolls out during their onstage presentations. Apple would probably try
hard to get Adobe to follow along here, since it's an important app that
people want to use.

------
minimaxir
Here's a relevant 2014 WWDC presentation on how Apple redesigned iWork to work
on both iOS and Mac using most of the same codebase, and the technical
problems which needed to be solved:
[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2014/233/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2014/233/)

------
kmfrk
Outright shared apps sounds like a terrible experience. I can definitely
understand the argument from a developer perspective wrt shared code bases
between platforms, i don't know if the user part of me is excited, though.

Maybe it'll also keep people from using other frameworks and lock them in on
Apple platforms more.

~~~
Clubber
Like everything, it greatly depends on the execution rather than the concept.

~~~
falcolas
The concept was tried with Windows 8; they had to go back to offering both
desktop and touchscreen options. Based on my experiences using an iPad,
iPhone, and a variety of mac laptops, I don't see how this could be
practically different.

Touch interfaces take up too much space on lap/desktops, and desktop
interfaces are inconvenient to the point of not working with touch.

~~~
whowouldathunk
> The concept was tried with Windows 8; they had to go back to offering both
> desktop and touchscreen options.

Still using the same platform. The idea is to use responsive design rather
than different UI frameworks.

Disclosure: I work at Microsoft.

------
beders
Please, don't Apple. A Mac is a different device with a very very very
different user interface - in the sense of how users are interfacing with it.
I don't need ANY of the UIKit interface elements on my Mac.

It's like Write Once Run Anywhere all over again. Instead, go back and focus
on what made OS X so great. Because High Sierra ain't it.

It's bad enough that a viewer of hypertext documents is now the common 'app'
platform, I don't need or want a unified UI kit.

------
evadne
It would be interesting to compare this to
[https://github.com/BigZaphod/Chameleon](https://github.com/BigZaphod/Chameleon)
which came out of the Iconfactory in 2011:

“Chameleon requires OS X 10.6 or higher. Apps built with it have been proven
to be acceptable to Apple for the Mac App Store. Chameleon was first built by
The Iconfactory to unify the codebase of Twitterrific for both Mac and iOS.”

Frameworks with iOS/macOS targets have long existed and it is proven possible
to have events routed in UIKit style. I however fear that the merging of user
experiences will come at the detriment of the Mac experience.

SJ said long ago that Macs are trucks and only some people need it. This
converging step makes no sense when Apple is already trying to push the iPad
as the “computer” for the masses.

------
goalieca
Having lived through windows 8 and the .net frameworks, I really hope Apple
can do better.

~~~
_rpd
I don't think it is possible. Different hardware means different user
experience.

You can pretend it is the same application, make one sale and provide
different software for each device. But this is more of a marketing gimmick
than anything.

~~~
falcolas
It's not even the hardware, it's the user interface. Touch interfaces are too
large for desktops apps well, and desktops interfaces are too fiddly to be
used with touch.

~~~
macintux
Agreed, but if anyone understands that UI platforms are different with
different needs, it's Apple.

------
romanovcode
Ugh. Not looking forward to this at all. Instead of making things perfectly
fit each device they will try one-fits-all approach which will most likely be
sub-optimal at best and horrible at worst (Windows8).

~~~
saagarjha
Windows is a different beast–many of it's laptop/desktop computers have
touchscreens, and Microsoft overreached and basically made the experience
better for them at the expense of mouse/keyboard devices. Apple can't do this,
of course, since Macs don't have touch screens.

~~~
stevenwoo
The cynic in me sees your last statement as an indication of the next must
have feature - the official Apple Touch Screen Monitor for your desktop Mac.

~~~
romanovcode
But Steve did the research, he even said himself: "Laptop users do not want a
touch screen!".

To which I completely agree, mind you.

------
dddddaviddddd
Seems like such a bad idea from a UX perspective that it's hard to imagine iOS
apps on macOS being anything more than reimagined Dashboard widgets.

~~~
checker659
I think the burden is going to fall squarely on iOS developers to make their
apps usable with mouse and keyboard on the mac. Mac developers are probably
not going to bother porting their UI to work on iOS though. Apps like Sketch
App come to mind.

------
selfsimilar
No one's mentioned this but could this be a precursor to weaning themselves
off of Intel for MacOS devices?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Why would it be? macOS's APIs are architecture-independent and have been since
day one, which is what enabled the smooth transition from PowerPC to x86.

------
nicodjimenez
I'm surprised by all the negative comments about this. It's hard for me to
understand why this is a bad thing. Linking the phone to the computer in
deeper ways without having to write separate apps seems _super_ valuable.

~~~
petecox
Yes. The obvious universal API that targets big screens and small, touch or
mouse is Qt. It started as a desktop framework, was made touch-aware to be
used Nokia and BB10 for phones, powers KDE 5 and I'm hopeful Ollie Paranoid
will provide an update in a few weeks re: Plasma on postmarketOS.

Now a company with Apple's resources should surely be able to reintegrate the
Cocoa Touch hard-fork back into a common modernised Cocoa, which by now has a
30 year legacy from NeXTSTEP.

Naturally you'll still need to customize a UI for Mac or iPhone but a unified
toolkit is entirely possible.

------
azinman2
So basically they’re going to allow a 3rd set of storyboards and components
for the Mac (theres already differences for iPad and iPhone), and then somehow
merge the frameworks so it’s coherent from a programming perspective?

------
txmx2017
This convinces me my suspicions are correct. They want to replace desktops
with iPhones.

Apple has been drastically increasing the power of the processors in iPhones.
Now they’re unifying the iOS and macOS experience.

They’re going to create a desktop mode within iOS. It’ll use bluetooth
peripherals and an HDMI Airplay stick that plugs into a monitor.

The iPhone will become a PC we carry around in our pockets containing all our
data making it unnecessary to have a different computer in every place we go
to. And it will justify spending more on our phones because we’ll be saving
not buying desktops.

~~~
brazzledazzle
I've suspected that iOS-only had been the plan for a while and I am pretty sad
about it to be honest. I'm sure the user experience will be great but I'm a
professional and I want a relatively unrestricted OS with a decent UI and good
hardware. I suspect I'll have to compromise on at least one of those
eventually. It makes sense for Apple but it will be the end of an era.

------
pfarnsworth
Please just fix iTunes for God's sake. Why are they wasting all this effort
when their core apps like iTunes are among the worst apps in existence but are
forced upon us?

~~~
saagarjha
Maybe they'll rewrite iTunes to use this framework, instead of the C++
Windows/macOS hybrid monster it is today?

~~~
checker659
If they write it in Swift, all the problems will magically go away. Just like
how stable rest of macOS has become in the last few years.

~~~
saagarjha
You're joking, right?

~~~
checker659
What do you think?

------
skc
They are inching ever closer and closer to that toaster-fridge they despise.

------
therealmarv
This are two different eco systems. What works for touchscreen does not work
for Desktop and vice versa. I don't want even one app from the phone/tablet on
my Desktop. This only gets messed up. The good thing about macOS is that Apple
stick to it and does not mess it up like Microsoft with their confusion about
touch and non touch apps.

------
pducks32
This is probably going to be focused on lower performance apps but for those
talking about video editors it may be important to point out that though the
iPad is insanely powerful, it's not as strong at doing long term high
performance tasks. Not like a laptop anyways.

~~~
1_2__4
It’s insanely powerful only for its size and energy usage. There are so many
cut corners and micro-lies when it comes to mobile that make all the specs
sound good but at the end of the day they are far, far more crippled devices
than any desktop or laptop computer. They tout things like processor specs but
the entire computer matters, and turns out when you optimize for power
efficiency and battery life a whooooole lot of computing power is simply not
there for you to use.

------
twobyfour
Really looking forward to my complex professional software and content
creation and data management desktop tools being dumbed down to the UI
complexity of an iPhone just like desktop web apps have been since the advent
of responsive design.

Maybe the upside of this will be all the developer types fleeing to Linux and
Linux finally gaining a comparable user-facing software ecosystem.

(Yes, I know a lot of software exists for Linux, but the quantity, variety,
and ease of installation of end-user applications on Mac is in a different
league; and a lot of mainstream Mac+Windows apps still don't have Linux
versions. It's the main thing Apple gained by making OSX developer-friendly in
the first place.)

------
beedogs
This will probably be what gets me (and most power users) to leave Apple's
walled garden for good. Once iOS infects MacOS heavily enough that it
interferes with the way I prefer to use my computer, it's all going away.

------
pazra
Going to be very interesting to see how they go about implementing this. So
much is different about the UI of Mac Os and iOS, that I'm guessing at the
very least you'll need different views for each platform.

------
juicy-fruit
This is amazing news. As a developer the idea of writing once and running on
many platforms is weight off our shoulders.

However, I can also see how a lot of developers might not like this. For
example, Cultured Code charges $13.99 for Things on iOS but $49.99 on Mac. Why
the difference? It is mostly because users expect apps to be cheap on mobile
even though developing for both platforms is comparable. However now,
developers are going to be _expected_ by users to support both iOS and Mac
apps for the same price.

Also, I feel like this news might imply ARM based macOS?

~~~
trollied
No, it won’t imply ARM macOS. It’s obviously a distinct possibility, and I
wouldn’t be surprised if they went that way one day. In fact, given release
builds uploaded to Apple are basically just an intermediate llvm bitstream,
Apple could theoretically release to any architecture.

~~~
astrange
llvm bitcode is a compiler IR and nothing else, it's not architecture-
independent. There have been independent bytecodes based on it like PNaCL and
SPIR-V, but they're not nearly good enough to run any old app on.

------
heavymark
The reason MAS is a ghost town I have always assumed was because of the MAS
limitations and that unlike iOS devs aren’t required to use the store.

iOS and macOS are totally different so you’d still have to develop custom ui’s
though Apple could certainly help to make it easier to develop for both
platforms at once. But even then MAS would remain mostly a desert until they
even change limitations or require all apps to be from MAS which would be
nearly impossible, especially for business customers.

------
maxpert
Would be interesting to see how Apple tackles the problem; since other giants
have failed badly on this. Microsoft is perfect example of over-promising and
not getting traction.

------
BerislavLopac
I've realised a while ago that the fact that OSX is Unix-based and fairly open
- and therefore used by many developers for non-Apple development -- happened
purely by accident, because Apple needed a better replacement for the old
MacOS 9 and NExTSTEP was readily available. When developing iOS they made it
more controlled and closed, and they're now following that strategy to the
desktop.

------
Shivetya
I just don't see anyone winning other than trash app sellers.

far too many using iOS expect apps to be free or so cheap as to be free. how
will that outlook crossover into the Mac world? Let alone how will all the
apps with in app purchases play out in the Mac world?

finally, how much functionality must mac apps give up to be compatible with
both systems? the mac ecosystem is much more open than iOS, is that going to
change?

------
dangoor
I guess this is possible given that their frameworks support many different
screens at this point, and some variation in tap target size. But it's not
totally clear to me that supporting both touch and mouse in one app will do
both input mechanisms justice.

Unless they're imagining that there would be a completely different set of UI
resources for Mac apps vs iOS ones?

Any thoughts on this from Windows users?

------
bonaldi
I'm hoping "unified user experience" is meant in a big way -- the promise of a
device that can go from touch UI when in my pocket to desktop experience when
a keyboard and display are connected is a huge one.

The makings of such support are already there in the hooks iOS has to support
different size classes -- currently used to handle device rotation mainly.

------
notfried
This makes more sense for games than apps (for apps could have a much more
wildly different experience and design on the desktop than on mobile), and it
makes even more sense for VR games (where both input and output will be
identical regardless of the execution ecosystem).

------
JoshMnem
That sounds like a terrible idea. You need an Apple device to seriously build
iOS apps, so does that mean that Apple users will have trouble using software
that is created by people who write their software on other operating systems?

------
jaxondu
I take it that next year we will see a totally different macOS user interface,
in order to make the one ux experience alignment. macOS has not had major UI
changes for a few years, so maybe macOS app with no menu bar?

------
sparky_
Not enough info here to determine anything useful from the developer
perspective. If I had to make an arbitrary assumption, I'd guess that this
boils down to a UIKit implementation on the Mac.

------
nkristoffersen
people seem to forget but Apple makes some of the most powerful iOS apps
currently. iMovie, Keynote, Photos, Garagaband etc. And the experience between
iOS and MacOS is extremely similar between them. Just more “expanded” on
desktop. I wouldn’t be surprised if they share a lot of code between the
different platforms too. If this helps more developers accomplish the same
thing that Apple is doing with their own apps then I’m all for it!

------
liminal
Wish Apple would hurry up and eat their words so that they can add
touchscreens to their laptops. I'm using a mac at work and I so miss my
Windows touchscreen.

------
perseusprime11
Windows 10. I hope Apple treads this path very carefully.

~~~
partiallypro
Windows 10 is fine, Windows 8 was the failure. Window 10 actually suffers a
bit from not being enough like Windows 8 in some touch screen facets.

~~~
perseusprime11
Windows 10 became fine after taking windows phone out of the equation. You no
longer need to optimize for both big and small screen.

------
pryelluw
I know Beeware[0] is doing something similar. Disclaimer: Contributor.

[0] [https://beeware.org](https://beeware.org)

------
Hernanpm
It doesn't make sense for all apps but I felt like I need it since I started
using Margin Note app in my ipad and macbook.

------
beamatronic
The user experience I want includes USB ports, an SD card slot, replaceable
batteries, and the escape key.

------
garviand
This is exactly what Progressive Web Apps are going to achieve! Reinventing
the wheel once again...

------
dionian
This sounds to me like providing the ability to run iOS apps in a window in
Mac OS

------
whowouldathunk
Hopefully this means the iPad Pro will gain support for trackpads and mouse
input.

~~~
saagarjha
I would seriously doubt this. More than likely it'll be a unification of some
AppKit and UIKit API, with the developer being expected to tailor the
experience to the input devices available.

------
wiremine
To provide some historical perspective: Apple's done major transitions like
this in the past: The move from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS 10 and the move to Intel
come to mind.

I'd be curious to hear from experienced Mac devs on what they think of this
plan (if true) and the biggest hurdles?

------
mehrdada
Along with an ARM-based 12” MacBook named iBook. #speculation

~~~
saagarjha
Friendly reminder that a 12" laptop named "iBook" already exists:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook)

~~~
mehrdada
I was alluding to that indeed: reviving the beloved brand. Makes perfect
sense.

------
ajankelo
To me this speaks to the power of Progressive Web Apps.

~~~
justacat
Yea, that is the first thing I thought of when I saw this. PWAs could be made
for this and I think could be awesome

------
ZenoArrow
One step closer to killing off Mac OS.

------
borplk
Apple's got the Microsoft bug.

------
lucaspottersky
there we go again...

people failed so many times before... let's see what they can bring to the
table now.

------
johnhenry
I wonder if this is a hint that apple might finally be bringing a touch screen
interface to the Mac?

------
rakshithbekal
AKA UWP for Apple OS

------
colechristensen
I wish people would stop designing "one user experience" between mobile and
desktop.

Capital One just switched me from a nice classic UI to one clearly designed
for a small touch screen, and I'm thinking of switching banks because it
annoys me so much.

I generally hate when websites redesign to "look nicer" based on the aesthetic
du jour and in doing so throws away a significant portion of the
functionality.

~~~
_rpd
> I generally hate when websites redesign to "look nicer" based on the
> aesthetic du jour and in doing so throws away a significant portion of the
> functionality.

I'm right there with you. On the other hand, some of my accounts are still
using half-broken UI that hasn't been touched in a decade (A&M plans still
don't include UI apparently), even the minimum viable refresh would be an
improvement.

~~~
hartator
They will probably refresh everything except this part.

------
IBM
Hope they ban the shitty cross platform frameworks at the same time.

~~~
bitmapbrother
Unity probably accounts for 90% of the iOS games.

~~~
Pulcinella
I would imagine games would be an exception. Plus Unity started on OSX.

------
valuearb
This will be one of those Apple APIs that someone in Apple thinks is a good
idea, gets a half hearted release, then dies on the vine as the vast majority
of developers say “F no”.

It will be Apples less successful version of Electron.

~~~
cmsj
That really comes down to whether or not Apple uses it themselves. If they
port their various iOS apps to this new thing and have them replace their
current macOS counterparts, then this thing is safe to use.

~~~
valuearb
That's not the point. I have no doubt it will be "safe" to use. But if it's
going to be used for dumbing down apps, it's only going to be beneficial for
enterprise and cross platform developers willing to make usability trade-offs
to slash development costs.

As a Mac/iOS developer, I'd only use it if I'm able use the merged classes to
cross-develop on both platforms, while still implementing my UI natively on
each. If it's just for making iOS widget apps run on MacOS, that's fine for
others but it's not going to fly for many commercial applications.

The problem is, as an iOS developer, I spent the majority of my time writing
UI code to make our apps work as well as possible for users. Which means large
tap areas, eschewing menus, minimizing scrolling areas, etc. Basically the
opposite of good desktop design.

------
bitL
Apple just can't let go of copying Microsoft, first with flat UI, now with
one-size-runs-all :D

Seems like real innovation is a thing of the past.

~~~
petecox
I thought it was more Google providing Android compatibility within Chrome OS
driving the push to bring apps to macOS.

