Apple Brings iOS Apps Into Mac, But Won't Merge Platforms

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.

for how long?

[fred6666]

for how long?

Re: for how long?

[saloomy]

Forever, unless stated otherwise.

Re:

[Bing Tsher E]

Things have clearly changed. Back when I had an iPod Touch it wasn't possible to remove icons you didn't want. You had to shove them into a folder and put it in a corner of a page somewhere.

Re:

[cfalcon]

paraphrase: "Plants vs. Zombies is too hard to play on a small screen"

I think this is how they sell you an iPad :/

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

And a lone Windows 10 Phone user will cry "but we had that way back in 2015!"

Why not just include an emulator?

[jandrese]

How hard would it be for Apple to include an iOS emulator for the Mac that could run regular iOS apps? Sure it's a different instruction set, but that's a long solved problem. They even have the big multitouch trackpad so you don't have to work too hard to emulate gestures. I'm pretty sure they already have this for developers, so it shouldn't be that hard, although I'd prefer it if they put in a little effort to make it seamless on the desktop. You could install an iOS app just the same as a regular Ma

Re: Why not just include an emulator?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:

[Yaztromo]

They have an emulator in XCode.

Technically they have a simulator. When you build your Xcode project, it is actually compiled twice: once for the target iOS device, and once for Intel x86_64. When you run your code in the simulator, it's running native Intel code, and not emulating the iPhone/iPad processor as in a full emulation environment.

It's worth being aware of the subtle differences. You can get huge performance increases in your code in the simulated environment, as you effectively have full access to the x86 CPU's processing

Re:

[bondsbw]

Actually Apple is doing pretty much exactly what Windows 8 did, since WinRT was a set of universal APIs with targeted compilation. There was no emulation involved.

Sure it sucked, but it's hardly fair to compare Apple's 2019 vaporware with an OS Microsoft released back in 2012.

Re:

[jandrese]

The problem with that emulator is that it emulates an entire phone screen, not just one app. There's no OS integration which makes for a terrible experience.

Re:Why not just include an emulator?

[DontBeAMoran]

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

Re:

[Chelloveck]

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.

Re:

[BasilBrush]

Already tried it. There's a simulator in XCode that does exactly that. And it makes for a terrible user experience.

What Apple are doing now is the right approach for user facing apps. Make iOS apps compilable for OSX, but allow for changing the things that are different on the desktop OS. Like resizable windows, typing and editing with a real keyboard, target sizes suitable for mouse pointer rather than finger, different transitions, a menu etc.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

I have a Mac app directly hand-ported from iOS years ago - and there's clearly something missing. It would certainly not be better with automatic porting or emulation.

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

Last I visited an Apple store, the iMacs were controlled by those magic touchpad things.

Re: Why not just include an emulator?

[Arnold Reinhold]

Appleâ(TM)s emulations of the 68000 on the PowerPC and, later, the PowerPC on Intel worked quite well. They also had tools for distributing a program with separate binaries for different platforms. No doubt they can dust them off to distribute apps for both ARM and x86 when the time comes. Apple seems to be taking their time to think this through, which is wise.

Re:

[BasilBrush]

I don't think there's any need for fat binaries. The App Store and The Mac Store are separate places. Different download for users, different upload for developers.

Same XCode project for both, same code, compiling for 2 different targets.

A developer would probably want to deliver them on a different schedule anyway. Different testing plan. And quite likely different bugs to fix.

The Xcode Simulator Works Well

[glennrrr]

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.

Re:

[BasilBrush]

Agreed. I'm the same.

But it depends what sort of app it is. Motion, GPS, Games, Camera, VR etc, you probably do want to use device rather than simulator. And it doesn't take much longer to do so.

Re: Why not just include an emulator?

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Re:

[BasilBrush]

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.

Re:

[Bing Tsher E]

Why do you think they're ditching Intel for ARM?

Good question. Why would anybody think that?

Re: Sad

[Bing Tsher E]

Apple has never use an in-house processor for their Mac. The last time they came close to doing so with the PPC it turned into a disaster they had to abandon. So it's hard to say it's something Apple tends to do.

Hoping

[Ol Olsoc]

I had to buy a Windows laptop in order to run some SDR software I had to work with. Then they released a nice version of the software in iOS. But my main platform is a Mac.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I might be able to go Windows free again. Then I can give the laptop to someone I don't like.

Re:

[bondsbw]

2004 called to let you know that Macs can run Windows now.

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

2004 called to let you know that Macs can run Windows now.

But its still Windows, with all the update fun that Microsoft provides.

Yes pls

[Smiddi]

The sooner Apple allow iO/S apps to run on Macs the better.