According to a new report from Bloomberg author Mark Gurman, Apple is working on new developer tools which will enable developers to design and engineer a single application that runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, internally called project “Marzipan”.
Project “Marzipan” is expected to be publicly announced during WWDC 2018, alongside the launch of iOS 12 and macOS 10.14, however Bloomberg notes that it’s possible that work may overrun, and could even be cancelled.
The report speculates that universal apps would make it easier for Apple to one day create a single operating system for all of its devices, should it ever go down that avenue.
Starting as early as next year, software developers will be able to design a single application that works with a touchscreen or mouse and trackpad depending on whether it’s running on the iPhone and iPad operating system or on Mac hardware, according to people familiar with the matter.
If project “Marzipan” was to proceed, it’s possible Apple could one day merge the less-popular Mac App Store with the App Store for iPhone and iPad.