by Jason Snell
Apple should go all in on Marzipan
Dieter Bohn of The Verge speaks the truth—Marzipan apps are the future of macOS. And that means Apple needs to eat its own dog food and commit to converting most of its Mac apps to Marzipan:
In fact, I think Apple should do more than double down on these iPad-style apps on the Mac. I think Apple should go all in and make nearly all of its consumer Mac apps with the new UIKit / Marzipan frameworks, including Mail, Notes, Messages, FaceTime, Photos, Reminders, and Calendar. Apple should just go for it, sooner rather than later, and ideally right now.
My reasoning is pretty simple: whether you think these apps should be the future of macOS development, they’re absolutely coming either way, and Apple should want to ensure that they’re great. The surest way to improve iPad apps on the Mac is for Apple to force its own employees to use them and then fix them.
The funny thing is, I think this is basically happening. It’s sort of pointless to complain about how weak the Marzipan apps are in Mojave—that technology is a year old, and Apple has had all that time to advance the ball. But the new stuff that will be unveiled next week, that’s the real deal—and it needs to be good. I fully anticipate Apple will move more of its iOS apps over to the Mac using Marzipan. (TV, Podcasts, Reminders, and Messages seem like a good start.)
Dieter suggests that Apple might want to release even more apps in Marzipan beta versions, even if they’re not quite good enough, just to get things going. Sort of like jumping into a cold swimming pool. I’m not sure Apple’s really that kind of company, but I hope that behind the scenes, Apple is ceasing development on the Mac-only versions of all of its consumer apps and instead pushing all future development to be done with Marzipan in mind. We might not get a Marzipan version of Mail or iMovie or Pages this year, but those need to be in the works.
Like it or not, Marzipan apps are the future of macOS—and they need to be good, or macOS won’t be.