Apple to let developers port iOS apps to Mac, starts with own apps in macOS Mojave

Concluding its WWDC 2018 keynote, Apple offered a "sneak peek" at what it called a multi-year project to bring iOS apps to the Mac.

While iOS and macOS share similar underlying frameworks, there are also key differences that have made porting iOS apps to Mac difficult, said Apple's senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi. The company is incorporating previously iOS-only frameworks into macOS, and allowing those apps to tap into things like mouse and trackpad input, resizable windows, scroll bars, and copy-and-paste.

Some apps in this fall's macOS Mojave — namely Home, News, Voice Memos, and Apple Books — are in fact ports of their iOS equivalents.

Federighi denied speculation that Apple will eventually merge macOS and iOS, bringing up a dramatic "No" slide when raising the topic.

Rumors of iOS apps coming to the Mac have been around since 2017. Apple could partly be hoping to reinvigorate the Mac App Store, which has languished given the ability of Mac developers to sell apps anywhere they want without giving Apple a percentage of revenues or going through screening.

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33 Comments

StrangeDays

said about 5 years ago

"Are you merging iOS and macOS?"

Craig: "No. Of course not!"

...it was a good moment of comic relief.

This announcement (the Marzipan rumor) is a good approach to lowering the barrier of entry to building native-Mac apps. As Gruber and other devs predicted, it's not "iOS apps running on Mac!" but is the addition of a framework (UIKit) to macOS to make it easier to build a native-Mac app based on work already done for an iOS app. Exactly what we devs said in the comments here. It won't be an iOS app on Mac (other than that you wrote code for iOS first)...the Mac version won't look like a windowed iOS app and will instead look, operate, and be like a Mac app.

This should increase the number of useful native Mac apps, which is their goal. If they instead allowed iOS apps to run in a window it would only reduce the number of native Mac apps even further. RIM experienced that pain when they announced their platform would run both Blackberry and Android apps. Guess what happened? Devs stopped making Blackberry apps, because why bother if it could run Android apps? I wouldn't expect Apple to make that same mistake on the Mac.

jkichline

said about 5 years ago

I'm super-excited about this as an app developer at WWDC! We have been struggling to get a decent version of our app available on the Mac Store. IF we can reuse most of our code and make it compatible to be compiled to Mac... it will make things so much better!

Rayz2016

said about 5 years ago

AppleInsider said:

Rumors of iOS apps coming to the Mac have been around since 2017. Apple could partly be hoping to reinvigorate the Mac App Store, which has languished given the ability of Mac developers to sell apps anywhere they want without giving Apple a percentage of revenues or going through screening.

So you’re saying that Apple is going to prevent developers from using the API unless they put the app on the App Store?

I doubt this will be the case.

lowededwookie

said about 5 years ago

I knew Apple would go this route because it’s the only route that makes logical sense.

Adding UIKit made the most sense when I was trying to port a barcode tutorial app that I macOS and I couldn’t work out how to do it despite developing it in iOS being super simple. I wished Apple just ported UIKit to macOS and have it work the way a macOS app would.

I think Apple is able to read my mind. I mean given iPhone and Apple Watch are connected to me constantly it seems maybe they’ve worked out how to read brain waves as well. That’s both super cool and super scary as well :wink:

TEAMSWITCHER

said about 5 years ago

I love the MacBook Pro, but ultimately it's still the same tired .. now decades old .. PowerBook design. The 12.9" iPad Pro provides a thinner form factor, front and rear facing cameras, better (non-Intel) graphics, a full touch screen, Apple Pencil support, and a high refresh rate display. These are exciting features that Apple is depriving the mac faithful. WHY ON EARTH ARE THEY DOING THIS? All that is needed is a decent keyboard cover with a track pad (not unlike Microsoft's Surface Pro Type Cover) and the iPad Pro would have everything needed to run macOS. I cannot understand why Apple isn't making this "macPad" product. It sure seems like low hanging fruit to me. Apple might be deathly afraid of what might happen. That the macPad would too popular, people would use it to replace their MacBook. Where today Apple currently sells two devices, people need buy only one. Apple is the company that not afraid to cannibalize itself? Maybe not! Honestly though .. if the iPad is the future of computing .. put up or shut up Apple. No - I don't want to run iOS apps on my MacBook .. I want a mac that do all the cool things an iPad can do.