The technology remains in its infancy, but it has allowed smaller development shops who otherwise wouldn't have the resources to create Mac apps to do so with relative ease. While early apps created for Mac with Catalina weren't well received by users, the release of MacOS Catalina brought several more to the Mac App Store that seem to have benefitted from more time in development. The news was met with enthusiasm and some wariness by developers, who had long wanted a way to make their apps accessible across Apple's different platforms - particularly after watching the Mac ecosystem languish while iOS and iPadOS apps grew into the millions, despite MacOS still having more than 100 million active users. Catalyst was formally unveiled at WWDC 2019 in June as software that would make it possible for developers to move iPad apps to the Mac by simply ' checking a box' in the development program Xcode. Apple unveiled Project Catalyst in June at WWDC.Īpple's efforts to bring iPad apps to the Mac are beginning to pay off, but there's still a long way to go before Mac users are able to find many of their favorite apps on their desktop the same way they do their iPhone or iPad.Īpple first gave a sneak peek at Mac Catalyst - formerly known as Project Catalyst and Marzipan - at its 2018 WWDC conference.
