8 MACWORLD AUGUST 2019
MACUSER PROJECT CATALYST“When I read some of the initial reviews
of those apps, people were saying,
‘Obviously this technology is causing them
to do things that don’t feel Mac-like,’”
Federighi told CNet. “Honestly, 90 percent
of those were just decisions that designers
made...People took that as ‘this feels
iOS-y’ and therefore they thought it was a
technology thing. Actually, it was a
designer preference.”
“The apps were bad because we made
bad design choices” is a bit of a weird
defense. Is Federighi just defending
Catalyst and his engineers (at, I might point
out, the expense of his designers), or is
there more to this? I suspect it’s a little of
both, as Apple tries to create a bridge
between two very different platforms at
the same time that it’s tinkering with a
wholesale redesign of what it means to be
a well-designed Mac app.
SEARCHING FOR THE
EXEMPLARY APPS
There was a time when Apple set the
standard for the apps on the Mac. To see
an Apple-built app was to see what apps
on the Mac should look like. Especially in
the early days of Mac OS X, we would
pore over included apps like Safari and
Mail and Address Book and bundled
apps like those found in the iWork and
iLife collections.
These apps would suggest to Mac app
developers what Apple thought the state
of the art of Mac app design was. A few
months later you’d see that all the major
Mac app updates would be taking hints
from Apple—a tab display here, a drawer
there, a floating palette over there.
Mojave’s four iOS import apps inspired
nobody. It’s possible that by the time
macOS Catalina ships, they’ll be
improved—and the additions of Podcasts
and Find My might also change the
narrative. But based on the initial public
beta release, these apps are still either
very simple utilities or are still missing
menu items and keyboard shortcuts and
the other niceties that Apple spent all of
WWDC week pushing to an audience of
potential Catalyst developers.
This is not to say that there won’t be
great examples of Catalyst apps,
exemplars for other developers to follow.
I’m optimistic that some of the developers
of iOS apps I use a lot will go the extra
mile to make sure that their apps are good
Mac apps when they appear on the
platform. I was encouraged by a Twitter
thread (go.macworld.com/twth) from the
developer of Ferrite Recording Studio, one
of my favorite iOS apps. In the thread, he
says he is committed to making a “Proper
Mac App” and that it will take time to do
so. While listening to the Accidental Tech
Podcast (go.macworld.com/atpd) and
Under the Radar (go.macworld.com/udrd)