Back when Apple announced macOS Catalina, the company also announced Project Catalyst. This allowed devs to port iOS and iPadOS apps to macOS. Following this, the company is now announcing that it plans to add universal app purchases in March.
With this, Apple is also allowing app developers to distribute macOS, iOS and tvOS as a single universal purchase, in addition to the way things currently are. This can also apply to in-app purchases.
Developers will need to have the Xcode 11.4 beta update to make their apps universal. With the update, Mac Catalyst apps willbe made universal by default. Existing apps can also be given the universal treatment.
On the consumer front, when universal app purchases take effect in March, app categories will also be unified across the App Store and the Mac App Store. Some categories will also be merged to make things more streamlined, such as combining “Photography” and “Video” into “Photo & Video”.
This is good news for those who use both Apple computers and mobile devices. Especially benefiting from this are those who use the same apps on both platforms. Fluidity has always been one of the advantages of choosing to be in the company’s ecosystem, and this can be seen as another step in improving that fluidity.
(Source: Apple via Ars Technica)
