Do you think catalyst is just the 1st step in the ARM Mac. Yes it allows apps written for iOS to port to MacOS, but is also port apps running on an ARM chip to an intel chip?
I agree, it’s about having standard APIs between iOS and macOS. So your swift code can port between both.
As for ARM or Intel it all depends on the binary code produced by XCode.
Thanks good to know!!
In no expert, but I disagree with some of the reasoning.
Catalyst appears to make it easier for Xcode to compile the same codebase for Intel and Arm.
Catalyst is also a nudge in the direction of unifying what apps look like on the two platforms.
Therefore, if Apple choose to move from Intel to Arm, the transition should be smoother for them to manage.
In other words, I don’t think Catalyst is a sign that Apple is transitioning, but it could be a clever part of a transition if they are doing it.
My guess is they’re thinking of making an Arm Macbook so it runs really cool. I’d be very interested in that product, so maybe I’mwishcasting.
The first step that Apple made to enable the ability to move to Arm for Macs was to leave the GCC Compiler in Xcode for LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine). This essentially allows the compiler to store code (Bitcode) in a format that isn’t tied to any particular hardware platform.
The next step was Apple removing and/or replacing legacy 32 bit API and frameworks with 64-bit models that could be compiled for X86 or Arm based iOS devices.
You could say that Catalyst was inspired by Apple’s moves to become hardware independent but not the sole reason.
I would be utterly unsurprised if in 2021/22 Apple did this, perhaps starting with a low-end dual-OS ARM-based iBook laptop that ran Mac App Store-only Mac/ARM apps as well as iPadOS apps. Trackpad for Mac apps (maybe by that time with better iOS mouse/trackpad support) and perhaps rudimentary touch support on the Mac end (scrolling, text selection, who knows?).
While moves in this direction would be good, please let’s not forget that touch/swipe interfaces are very very different from mouse/keyboard interfaces. For a dev, the ability to run the code on both types of device leaves the (IMO) more important problem to solve.
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I think Catalyst is an in-between step towards the unified codebase in SwiftUI. As that’s not ready yet they have to do something to stop the further macOS app decline.