Jason Snell at Six Colors, looking ahead to WWDC next week:
These days, I’m getting emails pitching me for an endless stream
of new Mac apps. It’s quite remarkable because there was a
period five or ten years ago when it seemed like all app
development on Apple’s platforms was focused on iOS. Even more
interesting, these are all indie Mac apps that seem to be built
using native Mac frameworks, not the product of big corporations
that are just rolling their cross-platform development system
out everywhere. These apps seem to have a point of view and are
focused on the Mac.Of course, it’s happening because of AI. […]
Mac users — some of them developers, some of them people who have
never written software in their lives — are building apps that
fulfill their imaginations.We now live in an era where, if you can dream an app, you can
probably build it. Especially Mac utilities. And who cares more
about native Mac software than Mac users? Certainly not those
companies that gave up on Mac development and focused all their
energies on giant cross-platform code bases to attract venture
investment and big payouts.
There are pros and cons to everything, but on the whole, AI-assisted programming has rejuvenated Mac development. It wasn’t moribund, but it was stagnant. And stagnation is the first step toward decline. Now it’s resurgent, and that’s a fun thing to see. And, I think, genuinely important for the future of the platform. I’ve been concerned for years that the biggest problem the Mac faces is that so many new apps for the platform weren’t Mac apps. The Mac has never faced a decline in popularity, but truly native Mac application development (and the skills) did. Now it’s turning around. Mac users are thirsty for Mac apps, and with AI, they can quench their own thirst and tell the dullards promulgating Electron bundles to pound sand.
(And Snell, it turns out, has joined the party.)
