I tried this when the M1 first came out… and was frankly pretty disappointed.
few iOS apps were available, and of those, even fewer worked very well from a UI perspective.
e.g. the Moog Model 15 is nice, but the UI doesn’t scale properly on a bigger monitor, so is not that much fun to use.
I guess, if you have bought the apps to run on an iPad anyway, then they are an ‘added bonus’.
Im not sure how much this has changed , now we are much further down the line…
thats said, Animoog-Z perhaps points to a new direction.
I think this is perhaps one of the first apps that was designed with this iOS/macOS in mind,
so it actually works quite nicely on a Mac.
not sure, entirely sure what the benefit of doing this, rather than releasing a dedicated MacOS version, since the apis are not that far apart.
I guess, again the developers view it as an ‘added bonus’ that they get almost for free from the iOS development.
as the article indicates…
my experience is, installing iOS apps is one thing, and them being useable on macOS is very different. I tried a few early on, and most apps that didn’t really ‘advertise’ the feature, failed pretty miserably or were a quite unpleasant experience.
I suspect most devs that are not allowing their apps to be installed on macOS, it’s primarily due to not wanting to test/support on macOS - rather than restricting users/economic.
honestly, I think this was a ‘neat idea’, but its just not really that popular…
look above at the posts… how many are actually using this feature? rather than just having a quick test?
really apart from Moog Animoog-Z , Ive not seen anyone really using it a lot… and thats not surprising, macOS has a ton of options for apps/plugins … why bother using ‘limited’ iOS versions.
I think perhaps Apples main target could be GAMING, simply to try to kickstart gaming on the Mac.
Gaming is big on iOS… but on the desktop its all PC…
I think Apple want to some how leverage iOS, to give macOS gaming a kick up the rear
(*) model 15 was also ok, but needed better scaling options to be useful)
similar to above, ive installed a few but havent got round to using them.
however i have been playing lots of ios games on my m1, they run well and are cheap (i have apple arcade for a trial period which helps)
Oddmar+ is good visually though the gameplay is 30+ years old.
Is there any decent use case for this? I mean a computer be it a windows, mac OS, Linux already has tons of apps and VSTs available.
Is there a single app on iOS that has no “desktop” alternative?
I know that I did a similar research for Android but the use case was really specific: being able to maintain a whatsapp app running on a server so I can rely on my matrix bridge to be able to stay connected to my relatives using whatsapp without actually having the app running on a real phone of mine.
no, thats really my point - its minimal.
I think , Apple has enjoyed so much success with the iOS app store, they are trying to find a way to really leverage that better, get mac users using it more… which from a corporate standpoint make a lot of sense.
but technically?
well let’s remember for years , Apple has been pushing how easy it is to develop apps that run on both iOS and Desktop, the SDK is not so different.
as a developer, if this is your goal, it probably better (quality wise) to do it as a cross-platform product, rather than to ‘emulate iOS’ on the mac, and get a cut down experience.
(also you can sell as two separate products !)
I guess one area this might becoming interesting is in relation to the iPad Pro M1.
I think there the cross-over with laptops (macbooks) is much bigger, perhaps a complex app on the iPad Pro M1… might be able to written in such a way, it works nicely on your laptop too.
though again, we already can do that with multiple build targets… so really only useful if your iOS developer is for some reason wanting to avoid macOS dev?
Being able to run apps natively on your development machine is huge for anyone involved in development. An M1 MBP suitable for mobile dev costs >= $2k USD, and a recent iPhone is usually $1k or so. For a lot of people getting started, saving 50% on development costs is a big deal. Even more so if they live someplace where a new iPhone is a significant fraction of the local annual wage.
At a personal level, I’d love it if iVCS3 worked on my M1 MBP, but I’ve got a Syntrx so
I got an M1 air near release and used iMazing to side load apps that weren’t supported; i basically installed everything I had. Many apps did not run well due to the non-touchscreen experience… but some worked perfectly. My favorite is being able to use propellerhead’s rebirth iOS version natively on an m1. Sadly, as someone mentioned… the sideload loophole is gone now but any app I installed prior will work… but I can’t upgrade to Monterey.
As far as using sounds created with these apps in m1 daw productions… I just sample using audio hijack, makes everything a breeze.
Of course, I also own an iPad and since iPad/Mac integration is extremely simple to use and setup… it sort of makes all of this kind of pointless hah.
but is that a good thing for developers?
if it isn’t, then it won’t happen…
supply/demand… sure customers want cheap apps, but someone has to want to make them for that price.
the reason it works for iOS is because they hope to sell in volume, people buy a lot of apps for iOS.
but does not necessarily scale well for larger/more complex applications.
in more niche markets (say making a daw) with complex applications , can that really cover the (substantial) development cost?
its tough… and depends upon sector… e.g. gaming, sure… big market, people buy new games regular…
but its doubtful Ableton or Photoshop could be sold for $9.99 and stay in business.
It’ll be interesting to see if this all works for Apple ‘as is’, or if developers shun it… in which case, Apple might move to to some kind of ‘dual pricing model’ … when you pay a bit more to run in on your desktop… perhaps for extra features?
Already answered that one , earlier on - tl;dr; not much.
But price ( which this was a response to) is only a valid use-case , if it works for both parties.
since the users won’t have that choice if the devs don’t want to play.
and from what I’ve seen, many devs are not allowing their iOS apps on macOS, for this and other reasons.
I find it a bit boring anyways since I can’t use those apps directly in my DAW (or can I?). Beatcutter is more or less the only app that I like using standalone on my Mac.
…I really wonder if their app designer died or something… still no iPad app??! It’s not THAT complicated?! But this is still a very very good tip! Thanks!
