Photo Credit: HeikoAL
Apple recently launched Mac Catalyst which facilitates developers in moving their iPad apps over to the Mac. Well, this is the short of it. If you want the long of it and an in-depth discussion on exactly what Mac Catalyst does, read this article on iMore’s website.
Universal Purchasing
Now, Apple has taken it a step further with Universal Purchasing. It is a welcome feature that addresses the frustrations that came with Mac Catalyst, buying the same app on two platforms and paying for both.
Universal Purchasing was noticed by Steve Troughton-Smith in Apple’s coding software Xcode, in the beta release of version 11.4.
Universal Purchase for Mac/iOS apps! ? pic.twitter.com/9yNrDmwvWD
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) February 5, 2020
The Mac has long been kept away, development-wise, from its mobile counterparts but that bridge has finally been built. Apps have long been written for both iOS on iPhone and iPad as well as iPadOS by using the same source code, while you had to write another set of code for OSX and macOS.
How It Works
The same app can now be bundled for macOS, iOS, iPadOS and tvOS and be sold together. Developers can do the following:
- Force users to pay one price and get the app on all the platforms (hopefully at a lower price than added together separately) without the user having the option to buy the apps individually
- Have separate prices for each platform
- Have separate prices for each platform but combine them in a bundle at a discounted price which is less than what it would have been when added together separately.
Release
At this stage, it looks like Universal Purchase support will start in March 2020 to allow time for amendments to the App Store’s categories to make these apps easier to see. Universal Purchase comes enabled by default for all Mac Catalyst apps created using Xcode 11.4.
Mac App Store Changes
Every change has a chain of changes that follows. In this case, the Mac App Store will see new categories borrowed from the App Store. These include Books, Food & Drink, Magazines & Newspapers, Navigation and Shopping. Photo & Video will now be combined from previously being Photography and Video and the Kids subcategory will fall away.
iOS will be two categories richer with Developer Tools and Graphics & Design making the cut.
Who Will Benefit?
The answer is both, hopefully.
Developers
Developers will undoubtedly be on the receiving side. Using the same source code for different platforms will ease their workload. This feature will also help the app community by giving developers more time to fix bugs or add new features with the extra time they will now have by not writing double the amount of code to do the same thing. The majority of changes across platforms will be to design it to be visually correct on each device.
Consumers
Consumers will also benefit from being able to buy an app only once and use it on any platform. The only snag is that developers will make that decision for the consumer.
Closing
People are making technology smarter and more beneficial to everyone. With Universal Purchasing, we will be able to have the same functionality on each device and hopefully at a better price.
