I concluded last year’s edition of My Must-Have Mac Apps suggesting that, with iCloud approaching its public debut and developers starting to integrate native sync in their iOS and OS X apps, “a new class of Mac software” would take us in new directions. While that has been (partially) the case, 409 days later the results are more nuanced.įor developers, iCloud integration didn’t quite go as planned. An ultra-lightweight native Discord client for vintage and modern Mac OS Minimum System Requirements Current Functional State Important Notes Releases. Launched to much acclaim with iOS 5 in October 2011, iCloud immediately appeared as a fantastic solution to keep personal data in sync between iOS devices, but a more complex technology for third-party integration. For one, iCloud wasn’t even natively enabled on OS X at first: Apple had to ship a software update to Lion – 10.7 was released in July 2011 – to bring official iCloud support to the desktop. Months later, developers were still deeply concerned with the state of iCloud sync for third-party apps, as the APIs Apple provided turned out to be difficult to implement and unreliable at best. With Mountain Lion, iOS 6, and WWDC ’12, Apple tried to improve the overall experience for both users and developers. At the developer conference, Apple announced and demoed changes to iCloud that, according to developers I’ve spoken with, have improved the service, but not dramatically so. Mountain Lion has been received (here’s my review) as a fantastic upgrade for Lion users, and developers seem to be equally satisfied with the changes brought to OS X 10.8. iOS 6, on the other hand, has been welcomed by developers but criticized by some users for changes like Maps and the new App Store. That hasn’t stopped, though, iOS 6 from becoming a widely adopted update among consumers. When it comes to third-party Mac software – the essence of this annual series the first installment was published in September 2010 – it’s important to consider the effect the Mac App Store had on the developer ecosystem. And even in that case, the truth isn’t black or white, but a very peculiar shade of “it depends”. There’s no doubt that the Mac App Store has helped developers reach a much larger audience than ever before. You’ll find a complete list of the latest release of each version of OS X and macOS, along version code names. Especially with featured sections, promotions, and the revamped Editor’s Choice initiative, developers have been able to catch the attention of more users. Here’s an overview of every version of macOS and Mac OS X Apple has released.
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