Ars spoke with key members of the Apple team responsible for developing and promoting Project Catalyst at WWDC, as well as with a handful of app developers who have already made Mac apps this way. We asked them about how Catalyst works, what the future of Apple software looks like, and what users can expect.
The Mac is a popular platform among developers, creatives, and beyond. But while the iPhone and iPad App Store have thrived as one of the industry’s most vibrant software ecosystems, the Mac App Store hasn’t gained the same level of traction or significance, despite the presence of powerful applications that are not available on mobile.
Apple seeks to funnel some of its success with the iOS App Store over to macOS using Catalyst. We’ll go over how developers use what Apple has built step-by-step, as well as what challenges they faced. And we’ll share Apple’s answers to our questions about how the company plans to maintain a high standard of quality for Mac apps as an influx of mobile-derived apps hits the platform, what Apple’s long-term plans for cross-platform apps across the entire ecosystem look like, and more.
MacDailyNews Take: An excellent article, highly recommended.
The plan, of course, is that in the short term, before SwiftUI takes over, Catalyst will translate the some of the strengths of the Mac to iPad and get iOS developers well down the road to finished Mac apps, greatly bolstering the catalog of Mac apps in the process. Both outcomes look possible, if not probable, from what we’ve seen and heard about Catalyst so far.
These are very exciting times to be users of Apple hardware, software, and services!
The problem with joint development is that you end up with the limitations of one platform being imported to the other. Programs on a Mac won’t use more power then an iPad can deliver, programs on an iPad won’t utilize touch or portability aspects that don’t have Mac equivalents.