iOS apps on Macs?

Brent Simmons writes:

I’ve heard more than once that at WWDC we’ll learn about how we can run iOS apps on Macs.

I’m worried, of course, that this will lead to the further degradation of the Mac UI, and even less incentive for developers to write Mac apps.

I’m [against] it. But, also, I don’t know if it’s true and I don’t know any details — so maybe it would be awesome? We’ll see.

Nick Heer responds:

I completely understand where Simmons and others with similar skepticism are coming from, but I think the other side of this coin is more interesting and positive. What if easier cross-platform development is less about bringing iOS apps to the Mac, and more about making it easier for developers to bring Mac-grade apps to iOS?

I don’t know, but either way wouldn’t be great for the Mac. 

The first attempt at bringing some of iOS ‘back to the Mac’ happened with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, and UI-wise we saw the debut of a few hideous things. 

• Launchpad.
• iOS-style autocorrection: your mileage may vary, but I remember having to disable it on day one because it was constantly in the way.
• “Scrolling is reversed by default, to act more like a touch screen computer, so that content moves in the direction of finger movement on touch-pad or mouse (with the scrollbar moving in the opposite direction), rather than the scrollbar moving in the direction of finger movement (with the content moving in the opposite direction). Also, like in iOS, scrolling ‘bounces’ when the scroll bar hits the top or bottom of the window” [Source: Wikipedia]. Thankfully there is still a preference setting in both the Mouse and Trackpad panes to keep the scrolling direction as it always was before.
• Also, like in iOS, the scroll bar is hidden when there’s no interaction with the content, which is annoying.

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion introduced other things borrowed from iOS. Most notably:

• Notification Centre: I’m mostly neutral about it. I don’t find it to be an essential addition, but at least it remains out of my way most of the time.
• The Notes app as a standalone application.
• The Reminders app, separate from Calendar. I don’t find this separation particularly necessary, more like a way to mirror things further between Mac OS and iOS.

Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks didn’t introduce anything from iOS that was particularly disruptive. Its Wikipedia page notes that “Some skeuomorphs, such as the leather texture in Calendar, the legal pad theme of Notes, and the book-like appearance of Contacts, have been removed from the UI.” Mavericks was introduced along with iOS 7, and here began the flattening treatment of corresponding Mac apps.

The system-wide flattening of the UI design arrived in full with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. I actually found the flat UI redesign more interesting on the Mac rather than on iOS, but the decision to drop Lucida Grande as system font in favour of the thin Helvetica Neue was terrible (and I explained how I felt about it when it was just a rumour, before WWDC 2014).

Also, in Yosemite:

• Notification Centre gets even more similar to iOS’s, functionally, with the added Today’s View and widgets, like in iOS 8.
• Photos (introduced with OS X 10.10.3) replaces iPhoto and Aperture, and it’s the most glaring example of the ill effects of the process of iOS-inspired simplification of Mac OS.
• From Wikipedia: “The green ‘zoom’ button on windows now has a different function in applications that support full screen mode. Instead of simply enlarging the window, the button now enters full screen mode, eliminating the full screen button at the top right corner of windows that has been present since Mac OS X Lion. However, holding the Option key (⌥) while clicking the zoom button or double-clicking on the window chrome continues to invoke the original behavior.” I remember finding this change unnecessary and confusing at the time. Now I’ve grown accustomed to it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good interface decision.
• Spotlight receives its iOS-isation too. You might like it, you might not. My impression is that it’s once again a matter of looks before function. UI-wise, I’m still of the idea that the best Spotlight interface in the history of OS X is the first one, introduced with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. (I discuss this at length in The first Spotlight interface is still the best).

In OS X 10.11 El Capitan, we find:

• From Wikipedia: “OS X El Capitan introduces new window management features such as creating a full-screen split view by pressing the green button on left upper corner of the window or Control+Cmd+F keyboard shortcut, then snapping any supported other window to that full screen application.” I think this feature (introduced in iOS 9) makes more sense on iPads — if you’re using two apps and making a lot of back-and-forth between them, with Split Screen on iOS you don’t have to jump from an app to the other all the time, and deal with each one sequentially; you can view them side by side. On the Mac, multitasking is more versatile; screens are usually bigger; apps don’t take the whole screen by default, so you can easily arrange two or more application windows however you see fit and however you need. I guess the Split Screen feature on Mac OS X may have some sense on Macs with smaller displays, such as the 12-inch retina MacBook or the 11-inch MacBook Air.
• Again, from Wikipedia: “OS X El Capitan adds multi-touch gestures to applications like Mail and Messages that allow a user to delete or mark emails or conversations by swiping a finger on a multi-touch device, such as a trackpad.” I wish there were a way to disable this, as I still happen to delete messages accidentally when I use my MacBook Pro on the go. When it’s in desktop configuration I use the Magic Mouse, and swiping on it does nothing, thankfully. (Come to think of it, this is also an inconsistency; those who like using the trackpad gesture to delete messages in Mail cannot enjoy the same touch feature when using the Magic Mouse. But I’m digressing.)

With Mac OS 10.12 Sierra, the most notable iOS feature introduced on the Mac is Siri. My current Mac doesn’t go past El Capitan, so I don’t know firsthand how Siri behaves on the Mac, but I have no reason to believe it performs better than on iOS. In other words, I don’t know how really useful Siri is on the Mac. I had a few thoughts on Siri on the Mac back in 2016, when it was still a rumour. Have a look at that article for a couple of examples of the ways a digital assistant on the Mac could be actually useful to me. It all revolves around the usual core problem — reliability + consistency. As long as Siri’s responses continue to be hit-or-miss, Siri’s usefulness will always be compromised.

Now, zooming out and looking at everything that has been brought to Mac OS from iOS over the last seven major releases of OS X, the really useful features are perhaps those behind the scenes, features that improve the integration between the two platforms. 

With regard to the user interface, I find that iOS has acted as a distraction and an interference in the evolution of Mac OS X’s UI. While I understand the intention behind the ‘back to the Mac’ concept of 2010, what I’ve seen happening on Mac OS X from then on has been a constant import of features and ideas first originated in, or conceived for, iOS; some useful, some less so; but in such a way as to suggest that Mac OS can’t basically go anywhere without its iOS crutch. I’m tired of seeing this sort of codependency. I want to see Mac OS brought to a new level of power and flexibility, outside iOS’s growing shadow. I want to see an operating system that can truly make the Mac’s powerful hardware shine. Not dumbed-down systems that have to behave more like iOS because apparently the Mac is not user-friendly anymore on its own and needs iOS’s friendliness to be perfectly usable and absolutely idiot-proof. 

And I’m getting carried away once again.

So, if it’s true that soon it will be possible to run iOS apps on Macs, will that make the Mac OS stronger and more versatile, or possibly weaker than before, a sort of final cop-out from a company that seems basically out of ideas on how to evolve Mac OS and create new paths and directions for it?

Again, perhaps the ability of running iOS apps on a Mac is a way to further facilitate iOS development. As I wrote in Speculation and dread for the next transition:

Imagine being able to develop and test an iOS app running natively on a Mac instead of inside a simulator. Or imagine playing that iOS game on the Mac directly, taking advantage of the more powerful Mac hardware. Or the benefits of the Mac/iOS integration, where the Mac can run iOS widgets and little utilities as extensions that, for example, can directly interface with another iOS mobile device. If this were 2011, the narrative would probably be, Here’s what iOS can do for the Mac.

This wouldn’t be a total loss for the Mac, but it would certainly reinforce the impression that the Mac is kind of lost without iOS.

In that article, I continued by adding:

But it’s 2018, and seeing where things are going, I worry that the narrative is going to turn out as this: Here’s what iOS will do to the Mac. Because I have the distinct feeling that if iOS is allowed to run on Macs, it will be the end for Mac OS. Maybe not entirely, maybe not overnight, but who’s going to develop Mac OS apps when one can develop a iOS universal app that can work on iPhones, iPads, and Macs? Sure, the Mac version will have to adapt to the non-touch, keyboard + mouse (or trackpad) user interface and interaction, but perhaps it will be less of a headache than having a separate SuperGroovy Text Editor for iOS and SuperGroovy Text Editor for Mac OS.

In this perspective, I find difficult to be as quietly optimistic as Nick Heer. While I desperately hope he’s right, looking at how Apple has been prioritising iOS over Mac OS in the past few years, my gut reaction is more similar to Brent Simmons’.

WWDC 2018 wishlist

The WWDC will start in less than a day at this point, and I have no wishlist to share. I used to get excited before this kind of Apple event; now I’m just trepidatious. Once I used to look forward to the next thing Apple would introduce, I used to wonder What are they going to show us? Now I anxiously wonder, What are they going to break this time? The list of things I wish Apple would fix is getting longer and I won’t bore you once again with my complaints, so I’ll condense everything into a single wish — I would like for Apple to reassure me as a long-time user and customer. Reassure me that they have a plan, that they have the most important things under control, that they’re not like one of those motorised toy cars that keep crashing against obstacles at maximum speed, then change direction randomly until they hit the next obstacle, and so forth.

Apple is eroding the trust of a lot of long-time Mac users, with decreasing software quality, decreasing hardware reliability, and in the way the company is treating customers when (not) addressing such issues. I’ve been reading a lot of articles and blog posts, and watching a good amount of tech-oriented YouTube videos, and I’ve never witnessed this degree of widespread disappointment. Not even in 1995–1997 — the only time when Apple was really doomed (because of poor management, no less). What I wish from this WWDC 2018 is to catch a signal, a clue, however small, that Apple has been truly listening and is willing to course-correct for the better.