Apple is planning to develop a single set of apps in the future that will work across all of its devices including iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
From next year, app developers will be designing apps in a way so that they can be operated with touch, mouse, and trackpad easily without making any prominent changes to each platform.
Currently, developers have to design two identical apps, one for Mac OS and other for iOS, which is a lot of work. Moreover, according to some users, the same apps for alternative platforms aren’t updated at the same time, with Mac OS apps falling behind iOS apps in updates.
Simultaneous Updates
By having a single app platform in the future, this issue will be resolved for all Apple devices, including Macs, iPhones, and iPads, that will get the new features and app updates simultaneously.
An app developer, Steven Troughton-Smith, said:
Unifying the apps could help the iOS and macOS platforms evolve and grow as one, and not one at the expense of the other. This would be the biggest change to Apple’s software platform since iOS was introduced.
According to anonymous sources, Apple is planning new strategies out for the next major iOS and MacOS updates. The plans will likely start rolling out next year after the company’s annual developers conference.
The final plans, however, are still under consideration and might get changed or cancelled in the future.
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Apple seems to be following Microsoft in this update, which developed Windows OS for their phones, to bring mobile and desktop apps closer. It didn’t work out so well as neither the devs nor the users were satisfied.
Similarly, Google has developed the Chrome OS to bring desktop and mobile apps experience a bit closer and provide the users with more familiar and understandable interface.
However, it is still unclear if Apple will merge the separate iOS and Mac OS App Stores or not.
Long Term Strategy
The new announcement has been made under the umbrella of Apple’s long-term initiative to make its hardware and software more similar. The company is already designing its own processors for iOS devices since the beginning.
It has recently launched a T2 chip for iMac Pro that will itself take care of security and power management to reduce the load on the processor.
In accordance with Apple’s plan to unify the apps, it can be expected that it will be using a similar strategy for its hardware in future.
Via Bloomberg
