Apple and its Marzipan project raise the convergence of software 2018
Ubuntu was the first to raise the convergence without success . Microsoft also tried Windows 10 and its universal applications, but the failure of its mobile platform has truncated those plans. Google seems to have Fuchsia on the horizon , but and Apple?
The company of Cupertino seemed not to move tab except for timid winks like those of Handoff and Continuity . Now a Bloomberg exclusive discovers us the Marzipan project , with which Apple will allow developers to offer a kind of universal applications that are designed for both iOS and macOS. Convergence arrives to the software , and that raises the question: will it also reach the hardware?
An application for both iOS and for macOS
Those responsible for Apple have always been clear that both iOS and macOS made sense separately, but the fact is that while the App Store for iOS has had a spectacular trajectory, that of macOS has gradually languished .
As our colleagues at Applesfera explain , “developers prefer to focus on the app that generates more users, currently iOS rather than macOS”, and instead of having to put their efforts on two similar but not identical platforms they end up developing only for iOS With Project Marzipan that would not be necessary anymore, because according to Mark Gurman:This project could be unveiled officially in the next WWDC of 2018, and would go into action in iOS 12 and the next version of macOS that would appear in the fall of 2018, in less than a year. It is not clear if Apple would unify its app stores in one, but as Gurman says the version of the App Store for macOS has not changed since 2014 , while the iOS version was recently renewed.
A single operating system on the horizon?
For those of us who believe in convergence and have been talking about it for a while , the promise of Ubuntu or Windows failed for a simple reason: go from “up” (desktop operating system) to “down” (mobile operating system) It presented too many complexities when it came to adapting the paradigm of PCs and laptops to a mobile phone.The thing could be very different with the opposite approach , and we could see a good demonstration of how the future could be with Remix OS , a platform that has been left in no man’s land but that showed that Android could work perfectly as a desktop platform.
That concept has not been forgotten, and in fact solutions like Samsung DeX or the idea of Huawei in its Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro – which only need a cable, not a dock – have made it clear that there is an interesting way for users who want to use their smartphone as a PC in certain scenarios . Not all, of course, but the option would always be there to take advantage of it.
In fact the few movements that we have seen Apple are in that direction: iOS has gone “macosificando” (apologies for the term) and in its latest version has adopted both the file browser and the Dock if one works with the iPad. That suggests one thing and only one: Apple’s future is not in macOS, but in iOS .
It is true that everyone now has a sense and that there are certain tools that are not on one side or the other – for example, those that continue to make Macs a powerful tool for video or creative editors – but iOS is shown every time more ambitious also in those areas, and it may be that the Marzipan project is precisely aimed not so much that developers can take their iOS apps to macOS, but quite the opposite: that the developer of Final Cut X will take it to iOS, for example.
That hypothetical future – and it’s likely that this will not happen for a long time, if it really happens – would make macOS definitively stop making sense , although here another question arises: how would that affect the hardware Apple sells.
The ARM-based MacBook returns to bets
This unification and software convergence raised by this project could also imply a future plan in which the hardware will also be unified . It seems difficult to think about it considering that Apple has just announced its iMac Pro, but that ARM-based MacBook may not be as far as it seems.
Ubuntu was the first to raise the convergence without success . Microsoft also tried Windows 10 and its universal applications, but the failure of its mobile platform has truncated those plans. Google seems to have Fuchsia on the horizon , but and Apple?
The company of Cupertino seemed not to move tab except for timid winks like those of Handoff and Continuity . Now a Bloomberg exclusive discovers us the Marzipan project , with which Apple will allow developers to offer a kind of universal applications that are designed for both iOS and macOS. Convergence arrives to the software , and that raises the question: will it also reach the hardware?
An application for both iOS and for macOS
Those responsible for Apple have always been clear that both iOS and macOS made sense separately, but the fact is that while the App Store for iOS has had a spectacular trajectory, that of macOS has gradually languished .
As our colleagues at Applesfera explain , “developers prefer to focus on the app that generates more users, currently iOS rather than macOS”, and instead of having to put their efforts on two similar but not identical platforms they end up developing only for iOS With Project Marzipan that would not be necessary anymore, because according to Mark Gurman:This project could be unveiled officially in the next WWDC of 2018, and would go into action in iOS 12 and the next version of macOS that would appear in the fall of 2018, in less than a year. It is not clear if Apple would unify its app stores in one, but as Gurman says the version of the App Store for macOS has not changed since 2014 , while the iOS version was recently renewed.
A single operating system on the horizon?
For those of us who believe in convergence and have been talking about it for a while , the promise of Ubuntu or Windows failed for a simple reason: go from “up” (desktop operating system) to “down” (mobile operating system) It presented too many complexities when it came to adapting the paradigm of PCs and laptops to a mobile phone.The thing could be very different with the opposite approach , and we could see a good demonstration of how the future could be with Remix OS , a platform that has been left in no man’s land but that showed that Android could work perfectly as a desktop platform.
That concept has not been forgotten, and in fact solutions like Samsung DeX or the idea of Huawei in its Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro – which only need a cable, not a dock – have made it clear that there is an interesting way for users who want to use their smartphone as a PC in certain scenarios . Not all, of course, but the option would always be there to take advantage of it.
In fact the few movements that we have seen Apple are in that direction: iOS has gone “macosificando” (apologies for the term) and in its latest version has adopted both the file browser and the Dock if one works with the iPad. That suggests one thing and only one: Apple’s future is not in macOS, but in iOS .
It is true that everyone now has a sense and that there are certain tools that are not on one side or the other – for example, those that continue to make Macs a powerful tool for video or creative editors – but iOS is shown every time more ambitious also in those areas, and it may be that the Marzipan project is precisely aimed not so much that developers can take their iOS apps to macOS, but quite the opposite: that the developer of Final Cut X will take it to iOS, for example.
That hypothetical future – and it’s likely that this will not happen for a long time, if it really happens – would make macOS definitively stop making sense , although here another question arises: how would that affect the hardware Apple sells.
The ARM-based MacBook returns to bets
This unification and software convergence raised by this project could also imply a future plan in which the hardware will also be unified . It seems difficult to think about it considering that Apple has just announced its iMac Pro, but that ARM-based MacBook may not be as far as it seems.
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