My IOS apps run beautifully on my M1 Mac Mini. I’m also really glad I can run most of the apps I use on my iPhone on my desktop Mac.
Do you think one day you will be able to run M1 desktop apps on IOS?
Since most of my desktop apps are small I am thinking of ditching the desktop version and concentrating on just phone and iPad apps.
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One day in a far distant future maybe. In the next couple years… Not likely.
Currently less than 1% of the Mac installed base is running on ARM. Might not be a good idea right now if you have many customers who will keep their not so old macs for another 5-6 years.
Furthermore switching to iOS will prevent any Windows user from using your apps.
On the other hand, I completely switched from desktop apps to iOS apps 4 years ago. A decision I will likely never regret. Marketing for desktop apps is very difficult compared to iOS.
Reading this forum you will see that many people consider the Golden age of the Mac App Store to be long gone.
I believe the Golden age of the iOS App Store is in the future.
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What you are looking for is Apple’s Mac Catalyst. It will allow you to write a single app that will function properly for the respective UIs on iOS and macOS .
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More t’other way around. iOS apps are probably going to be the only way to make apps for Apple’s platforms in the not so distant future.
Only a few issues I see with this.
- It would requires an arm based Mac (it may take many years to propagate to the mass user base).
- iPhone apps run in iPhone sized windows, same with iPad apps (albeit I expect this to change).
- Some iOS apps do not work or usage is weird on a Mac, this may cause a general distrust of iOS apps on Mac (like a general distrust of FREE trials in apps which have a subscription).
True, at first glance I can’t see every app working especially when accessing hardware on an entirely different machine. For example you can just tell an IOS app to print to the default printer or search another drive.
And the big crunch is, for all your development hours users will expect to purchase your app for $1.99.
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No, the masses are unfortunately assuming to get it for free. Only if they see benefits in your app they might buy the “add-ons”. Subscriptions? That’s the biggest hurdle … you really need to have excellent content with many regular updates to convince people to sign a subscription :-(.
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Indeed! Users expect to get it for free and some of them might purchase the add-ons.
But depending on the app, pricing the in-app purchase at $1.99 isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
That is the price of my Secret Santa app and believe me the return on investment (development hours, servers, sendgrid, translations, graphic artist…) is massive.
It all comes down to how many downloads you get and how many of those downloads will convert to a purchase.
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If the MAS is 99/1 then the iOS shop is 99.99999/0.00001 (did I count the zeroes correctly?). Most of the developers with 1 $ or € apps won’t make a cent. I’ll rather stay with higher prices apps.
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yes, good app for a niche product and higher price.
My conversion rate is much closer to 10% on the iOS App Store 
I release new apps with lower prices then gradually increase the price using A/B testing to maximize the Average Revenue Per User.
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$1 and Free apps are the dead of software selling. I thoroughly dislike free software (not counting small tools etc). They are the deathblow for indy developers.
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The trouble is one of my apps has over 200 functions and took 10 years of development and improvements. When users think iPhone apps they think free or very cheap. They don’t understand complex and functional apps needs to provide more return for the developer.
It doesn’t leave much for Christmas.
In this case your app/piece of software should be priced accordingly.(10-30$
I don’t know what your app is but feel free to Pm me if you want some marketing techniques
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It all comes down to 2 factors:
- How many people need those 200 functions (they will recognise the benefits then).
- How will you let those people know that you are solving their issue (marketing). This is more important than your price then (which can be high).
For instance I bought years ago a scanning software for OS X. For my personal needs it is overpriced (as I don’t scan much), but I was upset with scanning issues with every new macOS release, and manufacturers either adapting their drivers very late or not at all etc. Though it is pricey from my perspective, the developer is great in terms that he is constantly updating the drivers for almost every scanner on the market. He is very fast in implementing change requests. So overall excellent customer service. Plus: for years now: latest on the day of the official release of a new OS, you have a running update. So I still believe it is pricey, but still cheaper than me spending days or weeks googling for workarounds and in consequence: I’m willing to pay 
.
If I understand it right, the whole idea of API 2.00 is to have enough compatibility between desktop and iOS, to use the same source for both.
API 2.0 is a different concept. Catalyst allows you to write an iOS application and add macOS compatibility via direct support for the mac menubar, mouse support, etc., so that it behave like a regular mac application and you wouldn’t know it really was an iOS application under the hood.
Is it not a Xojo forum ?
Good summary of Catalyst. I’ve been following some developers as they move in this direction, there is still a long way to go for it totally operate like a Mac application. Right now it feels more like an iOS app masquerading as a Mac app.
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