By Jason Snell
February 5, 2015 11:51 AM PT
New Apple Photos app contains ‘UXKit’ framework
Note: This story has not been updated for several years.
For a while, iOS developers have complained that the UIKit framework they use to develop apps isn’t available on the Mac, making it harder to apply the same tools and techniques and code they build for iOS to Mac apps.
Today Apple dropped Photos for Mac via a developer release, and some developers are reporting signs that Apple has built this new app using something called UXKit, which sits above the Mac’s familiar AppKit frameworks and strongly resembles UIKit on iOS.
The new Photos for Mac is based on a new private framework in 10.10.3, UXKit. It is essentially a replica of UIKit, based on top of AppKit.
— Jonathan Willing (@willing) February 5, 2015
HUH. Photos uses UXKit which almost seems like most of UIKit's API implemented atop AppKit. /via @zwaldowski
— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) February 5, 2015
Excited about UXKit. I hope it really is the future of Mac OS X development.
— Mike Cohen (@mike3k) February 5, 2015
It would make too much sense for Apple to make it easier for developers—inside and outside Apple—to easily use their work on both of Apple’s major OS platforms.
[Update: Brent Simmons doubts this will ever be used outside of Apple., though he says he “could imagine a minimal UXKit that isn’t meant to replace AppKit but that can be used with both AppKit and UIKit.” For all we know, that might be what this is.]
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