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Apple Brings iOS Apps Into Mac, But Won't Merge Platforms (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that? dept.

Stephen Shankland, writing for CNET: With its next-generation MacOS Mojave software, Macs will be able to run some apps written for iPhones and iPads, a big new step in bringing the two technology platforms closer together. Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, announced the change Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Jose. And he said Mojave will include four apps Apple itself brought from its iOS mobile software to MacOS: Home, Stocks, News and Voice Memo. "There are millions of iOS apps out there, and we think some of them would look great on the Mac," Federighi said. For now, it's only Apple that has the ability to move iOS apps to MacOS. But that'll change in 2019.

6 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Why not just include an emulator? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They have an emulator in XCode. However, the user experience is terrible, and that's the value that Apple brings - a user experience that doesn't completely suck.

    By bringing frameworks and APIs closer together, it allows the developer to make an app people would actually want to use, instead of some garbage emulated not-quite-right touch UI that barely works, otherwise known as Windows 8.

  2. Re:Why not just include an emulator? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's no guarantee the computer has a trackpad because of the Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  3. Re:Why not just include an emulator? by Chelloveck · · Score: 2

    There's no guarantee the computer has a trackpad because of the Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro.

    There's a lot you can do without multitouch, though. Most things I do on my phone could just as easily be done on an emulator with a single traditional mouse pointer. Make the emulator treat the scroll wheel (or modifier key + scroll wheel) as a pinch/stretch zoom gesture and that'd cover almost everything.

    --
    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
  4. The Xcode Simulator Works Well by glennrrr · · Score: 2

    As a long time iOS developer, I disagree with your assertion that you need to be constantly tethering a device. I do 90% of my work via the simulator, and only hook up a device when I'm debugging gestures or other similar features late in the development cycle when I want to make sure the user experience is good.

  5. Re: Why not just include an emulator? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Merging the experience in a way that doesnâ(TM)t force the developers to think of the different interaction results in things like Windows CE or Windows 8.

    Importing an application in this context can be easy, by ensuring the best user experience for a given device is another story.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  6. Re:Does it have dll hell? by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

    No. There's no point in sharing libraries between apps in this day and age. Storage devices are large, and code binaries are relatively small.