Over at Ars Technica, Samuel Axon has published an in-depth look at Catalyst, including interviews with several people inside Apple:
Apple seeks to funnel some of its success with the iOS App Store over to macOS using Catalyst. We’ll go over how developers use what Apple has built step-by-step, as well as what challenges they faced. And we’ll share Apple’s answers to our questions about how the company plans to maintain a high standard of quality for Mac apps as an influx of mobile-derived apps hits the platform, what Apple’s long-term plans for cross-platform apps across the entire ecosystem look like, and more.
We talked about this on Connected last week, but I think those who are writing Catalyst off as either something the Mac doesn’t need, or something that’s a dead-end with SwiftUI on the horizon are wrong, just on different time tables. Catalyst means the Mac ecosystem will get an infusion of new apps in the coming few years, while SwiftUI continues to mature. Will Catalyst apps be running on the Mac in ten years? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean it’s something we should write off today.
John Voorhees hit the nail on the head in his post over on MacStories:
This isn’t the sort of story you see often, but because the narrative around Catalyst has taken on a distinctly negative tone since WWDC, it’s not surprising either. As I explained in my piece on Catalyst last week, I can’t help but think that if Apple had done a better job explaining how Catalyst fits into its strategy at WWDC and backed it up with compelling Catalyst apps of its own, this sort of after-the-fact explanation from the company wouldn’t have been necessary.