Bloomberg: Apple Plans To Allow Developers Release Universal Apps For iPhone, iPad, And Mac

According to a new report by Bloomberg News , Apple is said to allow developers to create universal apps that work across iPhone, iPad, and ...

According to a new report by Bloomberg News, Apple is said to allow developers to create universal apps that work across iPhone, iPad, and Mac as early as next year. Mark Gurman says that the upcoming developer tools should aid programmers in expanding their existing iPhone and iPad apps to the Mac platform.

Apple tentatively plans to begin rolling out the change with iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 next year, and it could announce the news as soon as WWDC 2018 in June. The project, which internally codenamed “Marzipan”, so that we should learn more about the exciting new initiative at WWDC 2018 although the exact timeline is subject to change.

Starting as early as next year, software developers will be able to design a single application that works with a touchscreen or mouse and trackpad depending on whether it's running on the iPhone and iPad operating system or on Mac hardware, according to people familiar with the matter.

With the universal binaries, developers will be able to combine code and user interface assets for both their iPhone apps and iPad-optimized apps into a single download. The new tools will also extend the universal binary concept to macOS apps, too. It makes iPhone, iPad, and Mac to get new features and updates at the same time.

Currently, developers leverage Apple’s UIKit framework on iOS and AppKit on macOS to design user interfaces, but they’re required to design separate apps for iOS and macOS. It's not clear if Apple will go one step further and eventually merge the less-popular Mac App Store with the App Store for iOS devices.

Via MacRumors And iDownloadBlog, Image Credit Apple Support