![]() Machine intelligence-driven functionality increasingly dominates the keynotes where Apple executives take the stage to introduce new features for iPhones, iPads, or the Apple Watch. And with ML, many tech enthusiasts say that more data means better models-but Apple is not known for data collection in the same way as, say, Google.ĭespite this, Apple has included dedicated hardware for machine learning tasks in most of the devices it ships. That's partially because people associate AI with digital assistants, and reviewers frequently call Siri less useful than Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. Phase II starts in 2018 when Developers are going to get a chance to start working with it.Further Reading Apple has hired Google’s head of search and artificial intelligenceHistorically, Apple has not had a public reputation for leading in this area. It's been doing it for going on two decades already and it'll keep on doing it, hopefully for many more.Īgain, it's going to take a couple of years to get through it but the Mac app ecosystem should end up all the more vibrant because of it. The Mac has to keep evolving, though, and Mac apps along with it. And there'll be just as much grumbling and hot-taking along the way, I'm sure. Or maybe what we consider to be traditional Mac feel will change, just as it did when we transitioned from Classic to Carbon to Cocoa. Maybe that'll change over the course of the year. They're so freshly ported their touch-centric interfaces still squeak of iPad every time they spin around too quickly. ![]() They don't feel like traditional Mac apps to me, though. They're way better and more resource efficient than Electron apps - hi, Slack! - and feel better than progressive web apps, which still feels like something being pushed on the market to serve program manager and not engineering or customer needs. I've been using the "Marizpan" - or UIKit apps on Mac - for a while. ![]() They're all iPad apps that have been brought to the Mac with "very few code changes", according to Apple. Apple is using them to dog-food the first phase of this project. That where News, Stocks, Voice Memos, and Home fit back into this. But, because iOS and macOS share very different user interface paradigms, a lot of work still has to be done.Īpple is going to make that easier by moving key UIKit frameworks to the Mac, and adapting them for trackpad/mouse and pointer control, Mac interface conversions like the window-controlling traffic lights, scroll bars and resizing, and the Mac versions of copy and paste and drag and drop. It's part of a multi-year project that's being worked on by many teams within Apple, and should result in pushing not just Mac Apps but all Apple apps forward.īecause iOS and macOS share common foundations, sliding UIKit apps in alongside AppKit apps, it's not like starting from scratch. (And, yeah, the horrible Electron - localized Chrome tab - apps that are the new Adobe Air or Java apps.) UIKitĪpple is positioning UIKit as another option for developers, alongside AppKit, WebKit, and the graphics engines often used by games and some design apps. And they have, even if the solution has been obvious to some and terrifying to others for years: The good thing about problems Apple has to solve for itself is that it typically solves them for developers as well. They simply lacked the resources necessary to move the apps over given how much work they felt they still had to do to maintain their success on iOS. In many cases, it wasn't because they didn't want to. That's why many developers of popular iOS apps didn't bother. If a developer of a popular iOS app wanted to bring it to the Mac, large parts of it had to be ported from UIKit to AppKit. But, thanks to the popularity of iPhone and the iOS App Store, UIKit has exploded.īecause of everything Apple's done over the years with AutoLayout, size classes, and app bundles, making iPad versions of iPhone apps has been relatively easy. Apple ultimate decided it needed to do something new and created UIKit.įor the last decade, AppKit has advanced considerably.
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