Apple Is Said to Have Plan to Combine iPhone, iPad and Mac Apps

Apple Is Said to Have Plan to Combine iPhone, iPad and Mac Apps
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Apple’s iPhone and iPad introduced a novel way of interacting with computers: via easy-to-use applications, accessible in the App Store. But the same approach hasn’t worked nearly as well on Apple’s desktops and laptops.

According to Bloomberg, the Mac App Store is a ghost town of limited selection and rarely updated programs. Now Apple plans to change that by giving people a way to use a single set of apps that work equally well across its family of devices: iPhones, iPads and Macs. Starting as early as next year, software developers will be able to design a single application that works with a touchscreen or mouse and trackpad depending on whether it’s running on the iPhone and iPad operating system or on Mac hardware, according to people familiar with the matter.

Developers currently must design two different apps, one for iOS and one for macOS, and that’s a lot more work. What’s more, Apple customers have long complained that some Mac apps get short shrift. For example, while the iPhone and iPad Twitter app is regularly updated with the social network’s latest features, the Mac version hasn’t been refreshed recently and is widely considered substandard. With a single app for all machines, Mac, iPad and iPhone users will get new features and updates at the same time.

Unifying the apps could help the iOS and macOS platforms “evolve and grow as one, and not one at the expense of the other,“ says Steven Troughton-Smith, an app developer and longtime voice in the Apple community. “This would be the biggest change to Apple’s software platform since iOS was introduced.“

Apple is developing the strategy as part of the next major iOS and macOS updates, said the people, who requested anonymity. Codenamed “Marzipan,“ the secret project is planned as a multiyear effort that will start rolling out as early as next year and may be announced at the company’s annual developers conference in the summer. The plans are still fluid, the people said, so the implementation could change or the project could still be canceled. It’s unclear if Apple plans to merge the separate Mac and iOS App Stores as well.

Apple wouldn’t be first to bring mobile and desktop apps closer together. Before it discontinued Windows software for smartphones, Microsoft pushed a technology called Universal Windows Platform that let developers create single applications that would run on all of its devices. Similarly, Google has brought the Play mobile app store to some laptops running its desktop Chrome OS, letting computer users run smartphone and tablet apps like Instagram and Snapchat.