Apple News, Stocks, Home getting a Catalyst upgrade in macOS Catalina

Posted:
in macOS edited June 2019
Apple is planning to upgrade News, Stocks, Voice Memos and Home -- the first four apps converted from iOS to macOS under Marzipan, now known as Project Catalyst, software head Craig Federighi said on Wednesday.

Project Catalyst


"The underlying technology has matured," Federighi explained to CNET. "Some of that is super low-level stuff. Some people have dissected those apps and realized that they were sort of two halves: an AppKit [macOS] half and a UIKit [iOS] half, literally running in different processes. That's all unified now. This has become much more of a native Mac framework...So automatically, the apps we built last year are upgraded."

When the first Marzipan/Catalyst apps launched under macOS Mojave in 2018, they were quickly criticized for being broken or failing to take advantage of the Mac interface. Home, for example, clearly had its touch-oriented interface unchanged.

The updated software should make its appearance in the first public beta of macOS Catalina, coming later this summer, Federighi revealed.

The executive also reiterated comments made during WWDC, when he defended most of the shortcomings of Marzipan apps as stemming from design decisions rather than technical problems.

"When I read some of the initial reviews of those apps, people were saying, 'Obviously this technology is causing them to do things that don't feel Mac-like.' Honestly, 90% of those were just decisions that designers made... People took that as 'this feels iOS-y' and therefore they thought it was a technology thing," he commented. "Actually, it was a designer preference. So part of [the upgrade] is we said we've got to co-evolve with our user base around the aesthetics of the Mac experience. And so we made some adjustments to the apps."

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    the Gruber effect
    edited June 2019
  • Reply 2 of 8
    I love that they’re taking feedback and acting on it. A lot of iOS 13 feels like they made changes based on feedback through the years, really fine tuning it. So excited for the experience from the culmination of the smaller changes 
  • Reply 3 of 8
    AppleExposedAppleExposed Posts: 1,805unconfirmed, member
    Catalyst may be the biggest game changer we're sleeping on!

    Imagine in 5 years.....
  • Reply 4 of 8
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    brad6788 said:
    I love that they’re taking feedback and acting on it. A lot of iOS 13 feels like they made changes based on feedback through the years, really fine tuning it. So excited for the experience from the culmination of the smaller changes 
    Feedback from whom? Certainly not the clowns that post here.
    FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 5 of 8
    kestralkestral Posts: 308member
    ireland said:
    the Gruber effect
    That's when you get on your knees and grovel at Tim Apple's feet (or some other body part).
  • Reply 6 of 8
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    brad6788 said:
    I love that they’re taking feedback and acting on it. A lot of iOS 13 feels like they made changes based on feedback through the years, really fine tuning it. So excited for the experience from the culmination of the smaller changes 
    I don’t like how he threw the designers under the bus though. I mean he showed these apps off on stage last year. If they weren’t the proper UI/aesthetics of the Mac he should never have approved them.
    FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 7 of 8
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    This year’s awesome WWDC, the new MBA (mostly), Mac Mini (mostly) and Mac Pro show Apple has started listening listening again. I feel grateful for the attention, like an neglected dog when it’s master gives it a pat.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,836member
    kestral said:
    ireland said:
    the Gruber effect
    That's when you get on your knees and grovel at Tim Apple's feet (or some other body part).
    Incorrect. Gruber is probably one of the best Apple analysts if not the best best. He has plenty of criticisms and positions that differ from Apple’s. Listen to his show and read his blog and this becomes obvious. Nice try tho. 
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