At the coronavirus-forced virtual WWDC today, Apple finally officially confirmed it will ditch Intel to make its own Mac processors.
One of the most interesting points to come of this is that when these machines eventually ship (Apple says the first one will be this year), they will be able to technically run iOS apps natively within macOS. Apple said that from the off, people using ARM-powered Macs will be able to install iOS apps directly from the Mac App Store.
This is possible because iPhone and iPad apps were built on the same silicon used in the new ARM for Mac architecture. This makes them usable across platform, though Apple is unlikely to allow Mac apps over on iOS.
In the part of the WWDC keynote where the feature was briefly discussed (watch it below), Apple exec Craig Federighi said that “most apps will just work with no changes from the developer”, which is a little ambiguous. But if the transition is as seamless as Apple suggests, you should be able to run iOS apps with ease.
Apps appear to present themselves in floating windows, which makes sense for their formatting. It might not be the greatest user experience, but if you want to run something on your desktop that you’d normally pick your phone up for, it’s going to be really useful.
It’s similar to what Google does with Android apps on Chrome OS, and we’re fairly confident that Apple will be able to make the experience decent.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.