[dangoor]

This year's macOS update is expected to include a framework which makes it easy to port iOS apps. That will likely be exciting for developers, because there are _a lot_ more iOS developers than Mac developers.

The Mac is already a unix, so a lot of the things you list aren't necessarily things that Mac developers are clamoring for. WSL was a big deal because it brought the unix-like ecosystem to Windows, but Macs already had the ability to natively run a lot of unix utilities.

[jclay]

I still appreciate the WSL approach quite a bit more. I use them as “containers” (though to be clear they don’t support running Linux containers) If I need to test that my C++ project will compile and run on Debian, Ubuntu, and Arch, it is pretty trivial to do that using WSL.

I also avoid the issue of the differences between macOS unix tools like grep, where there are certain flags that differ from those on linux as I recall. This is of course resolved with using a port, but they’re still community maintained ports and under no guarantee to work the same on macOS and Linux.

[DuskStar]

> though to be clear they don’t support running Linux containers

I think this needs a 'yet', since supposedly it'll be changing with WSL 2 later this year.

[ridiculous_fish]

That seems quite risky. There are important differences between WSL and the real Linux kernel, and running on either is not adequate testing for the other.

[pavlov]

"iOS developers who want to sell their product on the Mac App Store" is a rather small subset of developers. I suppose it's nice that they're getting a bit of extra dividend on their existing iOS efforts, but that's pretty much it. Marzipan does nothing for the Mac.

Notably left out from Apple's current direction are existing Mac developers and web developers, whom Apple has been taking for granted for years.

[Roboprog]

One application domain with a largish number of iOS apps is electronic music.

The latency (sample buffer size to prevent drop-out due to preemption) on Android is too high, so mobile music production gravitated to iOS. E.g. - the latency on a $160 iPhone SE is still about half that of a $700 Pixel 2 phone.

[coldtea]

>iOS developers who want to sell their product on the Mac App Store" is a rather small subset of developers

You'd be surprised. There's absolutely no reason to be a "small subset" if it makes men easy money for quick recompile + some small GUI adaptation.

[pavlov]

People with iOS apps on the App Store are a small subset of developers. That's the reality now. Marzipan isn't going to grow that number.

[coldtea]

>People with iOS apps on the App Store are a small subset of developers. That's the reality now. Marzipan isn't going to grow that number.

Of course it is. In fact, that's the main purpose behind its development.

[pavlov]

You think someone who wouldn’t previously have developed an UIKit app is now going to do it because of Marzipan? What’s the incentive?

[coldtea]

No, I think people who have developed a UIKit app are going to port them to OS X because of Marzipan.

The incentive is easy port easy reach of a new, even if smaller, potential market.

To make the idea even clearer, if "porting iOS to OSX with Marzipan" was just a true/false toggle on XCode, almost everybody would toggle it and sell their iOS apps on the Mac App Store -- since it would take no time to do it, and it will reach a few dozens of millions on untapped potential customers (desktop mac users).

Well, it's the same situation, but now with Marzipan instead of trivially easy, like with the imaginary XCode toggle, porting an iOS app will be just "much easier" as opposed to "considerable effort" that it was before.

Also, I understood your comment "People with iOS apps on the App Store are a small subset of developers. That's the reality now." as meaning, "people with iOS on the MAC App Store are a small subset of developers" -- and responded to that.

If you meant: "People with iOS apps on the _iOS_ App Store are a small subset of developers" then that's crazy talk. They are hundreds of thousands of people making iOS apps -- and 1.5 or more million such apps.

[scarface74]

Well, seeing that all of the games that will be part of Apple’s games subscriptions will also be on the Mac and some iOS developers have already said they wanted to have a port ready “day one”....