{"id":39888,"date":"2023-06-26T15:48:09","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T19:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=39888"},"modified":"2023-06-27T15:17:43","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T19:17:43","slug":"elegy-for-the-native-mac-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/26\/elegy-for-the-native-mac-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Elegy for the Native Mac App"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keaton Brandt<\/a> (Reddit<\/a>):<\/p>\n

To the old-school Mac community, installing some shitty cross-platform Java app on their pristine Macbook was an admission of defeat. Even web apps were avoided whenever possible. They saw the use of such software as a tacit acknowledgement that the PC and its “ugly but effective” mindset had won. The point of paying double the price of a PC was to buy an elevated computing experience, and that had to extend to every third-party app on the system.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Many of the great Mac apps are forgotten or abandoned now. MacHeist is a grotesquely reanimated corpse. The golden age is over. The question isn’t whether Sketch will succeed because<\/em> it’s a beautiful Mac app, but rather whether it can succeed in spite<\/em> of that.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

We’ve moved on from the era of beautiful Mac software to the era of web-based apps, for better and for worse. There’s no one simple reason for this evolution, but it’s interesting to think through some of the factors.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

As of 2023 Mac sales are reaching all-time highs, but Apple’s interest in the Mac as a platform is lackluster at best. This year’s macOS Sonoma release adds some cool new features, but also continues the larger trend of making macOS more like iOS and iPadOS. Apple’s big new ideas for Mac software: iOS widgets and progressive web apps<\/a>.<\/p>

Apple is still very interested in selling Macs<\/em> — precision-milled aluminum computers with custom-designed chips and “XDR” screens. But they no longer care much about The <\/em>Mac:<\/em> The operating system, the software platform, its design sensibilities, its unique features, its vibes<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

It seems like Apple’s greatest passion with the Mac for the last decade-plus has been security and privacy. If the first decade of Mac OS X was about expanding capabilities and designs, with Apple as a cheerleader for all apps, the second was about which features and business models you’re not allowed to use and trying to minimize the regressions and friction that the system imposes<\/a> in the name of protecting users.<\/p>\n\n

Via Steve Harris<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Closer to home, I also agree that these days Apple’s bundled apps are going places previously only third-party devs would dare tread, and that worries me a little. Indeed, apps like Reminders and Notes in particular are very capable now, and if you’re an indie starting out, wanting to do something in that area, those apps will set the baseline, which is a lot. Additional to that, it’s not easy getting things out of those apps (particularly Notes, with all its new features), and so users will remain locked in.<\/p>\n

However, the biggest pain point for any developer is making an app cross-platform, potentially on macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android, with perhaps some kind of web version too. It takes a lot of time and effort to make native apps, sometimes an equal amount for each platform, because savings on the things they share tends to get devoured by gnarly platform-specific considerations.<\/p>\n

Apple’s answers to that are Apple-only solutions that won’t serve Android or Windows — porting iPad apps with Mac Catalyst, or adopting SwiftUI — and neither are anywhere close to zero effort to deploy across platforms, and nor do they provide a truly first-class experience on Mac right now. These technologies would be perfect for indie developers that only want to target Apple’s platforms, except that I know my existing apps’ users wouldn’t accept either, because the apps would turn out less integrated and therefore less powerful. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Core Intuition<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

How do we prioritize native platform development while maximizing the ability to deploy to all of Apple’s platforms? They talk about investing time into new platforms and frameworks when the investment will pay off, vs. when the work will be wasted on short-term workaround.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n