{"id":25671,"date":"2019-06-14T16:20:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T20:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=25671"},"modified":"2020-07-03T16:49:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T20:49:15","slug":"is-the-macs-future-bright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/14\/is-the-macs-future-bright\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Mac’s Future Bright?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

My argument for the downfall of the Mac is pretty simple. The raison d’être of the Mac has always been its unique<\/em> software. IMO the best software in the biz. The hardware has had its ups and down, at many points underpowered and\/or overpriced. But the software was always best.<\/p>\n

The business model of the Mac App Store, and the iOSification of the OS, are destroying unique Mac software. As soon as all the software becomes cross-platform and lowest common denominator, Mac loses its whole reason for being.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The question is, does SwiftUI help fix this by making it easier to support multiple platforms, letting you spend your Mac development time on truly Mac-specific features (rather than busywork from UIKit\/AppKit differences)? Or does it bake in too many assumptions and limitations<\/a>—it was originally developed for watch apps, after all—so that the API of the future can’t make good Mac apps (or makes that hard) and we end up with the worst of write-once-run-anywhere<\/a>? So far I’ve seen evidence pointing both ways.<\/p>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

All of the worst case scenarios are coming true. For example, when Swift was released many claimed that the writing was on the wall for Objective-C, and some people including me scoffed, but a mere 5 years later we now have Swift-only frameworks. One of which is the future of UI.<\/p>\n

Another worst case scenario: You can simply tick a box in Xcode and port an iOS app to Mac. Unimaginable before, but now it’s here.<\/p>\n

Mac developers now need to submit apps to Apple and get approval in order to distribute. Again, this was unimaginable in the past, but the worst case scenario is here.<\/p>\n

Don’t look at just this WWDC. Though it’s an important WWDC. Compare the Mac in 2019 to the Mac in 2009. Look at everything we’ve lost in those 10 years. Now project that same pattern out another 10 years.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The list goes on and on, and I’m frustrated by many of the same things. On the other hand, this is not the complete picture. There have been good changes and surprises as well, which empower developers and users. On the whole, I think Swift is a very positive development, and it came out of nowhere at a time when it seemed like Apple wasn’t taking the problems with Objective-C seriously enough. Likewise, SwiftUI could turn out to be fabulous, and it arrived sooner—and more ambitious—than most of us thought possible. iCloud is not great yet<\/a>, but it has certainly improved greatly compared with where Apple’s cloud services were in 2010. So I’m sure one could make quite a long “good” list, as well. Not that this balances out, necessarily. How can one weigh AirPods against sandboxing or macOS Recovery<\/a> against tccutil<\/code>?<\/p>\n\n

Mattt Thompson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Apple’s announcements of Catalyst and SwiftUI this year saved macOS from becoming obsolete as a platform.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Last week felt like what WWDC should be: an Apple developer conference. Off the top of my head, it was the best WWDC for Mac users and developers since 2005, when the Intel transition was announced.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Marco Arment<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

It’s hard to tell when Apple is listening. They speak concisely, infrequently, and only when they’re ready, saying absolutely nothing<\/em> in the meantime, even when we’re all screaming about a product line as if it’s on fire. They make great progress, but often with courageous<\/a> losses that never get reversed, so an extended silence because we’re stuck with a change forever is indistinguishable from an extended silence because the fix isn’t ready yet.<\/p>\n

But there has clearly been a major shift in direction for the better since early 2017, and they couldn’t be more clear now:<\/p>\n

Apple is listening again, they’ve still got<\/em> it, and the Mac is back.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

If you somehow believe that this WWDC was good for the Mac, consider this:<\/p>\n

Apple specifically and publicly rewarded Twitter for discontinuing their Mac app.<\/p>\n

The future Apple wants is one in which you don’t write Mac apps, you write apps for all Apple platforms.<\/p>\n

Mac is demoted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jim Rea<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I respectfully disagree. At recent WWDCs most features were “sorry, iOS only, quite discouraging for this AppKit only developer. This year, at almost every session the story was “all platforms supported”, and significant time was spent demoing on\/for Mac. Very exciting.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The elephant in the room for Mac software is the Mac App Store. At WWDC 2018, we were given the impression that the MAS would improve. […] The reality is that these few selected companies were given special privileges (in direct contradiction to Apple’s own anti-Spotify argument), and nothing else whatsoever changed about the Mac App Store. And again in 2019, nothing at all changed about the Mac App Store.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The existential question for Mac developers is, how do we sell our software to customers and make a sustainable living?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Steve Troughton-Smith<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Re-watching Catalyst sessions, it seems clear that Apple expects devs to offer brand new app SKUs for the Mac App Store w\/ no shared purchase, shared IAPs, shared subscriptions.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Catalyst MAS distribution options currently restrict you to: free apps (no quality filter), free apps with in-app purchase & server-side account records (i.e. price erosion), or angry users having to pay twice for a Mac app that you can’t dedicate 50% of your resources to<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know—I guess this is better than setting the expectation that you get all four versions of the app for one low price?<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n