Apple to give Mac apps such as Apple News, Voice Memos, Home and Stocks a major Mac-like update
Apple will give default Mac apps such as Apple News, Voice Memos, Home and Stocks a major update with macOS Catalina to make them more Mac-like, said Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi.
The four apps launched on Mac with the release of macOS Mojave, and have long been the burnt of criticism for the lack of a Mac-specific UI, with all apps essentially porting across the design found on iOS.
Speaking today, Federighi said Apple is working to make improvements to create a Mac experience for all four applications, and that the apps will be “automatically” upgraded thanks to Project Catalyst’s more unified, native Mac framework.
Federighi told CNET in an interview…
We’ve looked at the design and features of some of those apps and said we can make this a bit more of a Mac experience through changes that are independent of the use of Catalyst, but are just design team decisions, Federighi said. When I read some of the initial reviews of those apps, people were saying, ‘Obviously this technology is causing them to do things that don’t feel Mac-like.’ Honestly, 90% of those were just decisions that designers made … People took that as ‘this feels iOS-y’ and therefore they thought it was a technology thing. Actually, it was a designer preference. So part of [the upgrade] is we said we’ve got to co-evolve with our user base around the aesthetics of the Mac experience. And so we made some adjustments to the apps.
Apple hasn’t released any updates to the four aforementioned apps within the latest developer betas of macOS Catalina, though Federighi said “We’re still tuning everything up. That’s where it gets really good.” and that the apps would be ready when the public beta launches.