uTime 4 macOS Migration Info

uTime 4 for macOS is a Catalina Exclusive

At WWDC 2018 Apple announced plans to incorporate iOS apps into macOS in a project at the time called Marzipan. They started off with their own apps and said that they would open the functionality to all developers “later on”.

Mac developers had a decision to make: continue development on macOS and iOS seperatly or bridge them together and work on one update that would be easier to have across functions.

At WWDC 2019 Apple officially opened up the new project Catalyst to 3rd party developers allowing them to port iOS apps to macOS. The big limitation to this though is those apps require the newest version of macOS which drops support for 32 bit leaving users who require them unable to upgrade.

This leaves uTime for macOS in a tight spot: uTime 3 runs on legacy objective-c code that I made when I was just beggining desktop programming. In other words: it’s sloppy and hard to do anything with. Rather than re-write it like I did for uTime iOS the logical solution is to make uTime for iOS a Mac port therefor I can write one version and it will work universaly.

So what are some big benefits to this?

  1. Cross Platform Integration: I can now write one version of the app and have it be available on both iOS and macOS on the same day! No more waiting for features depending on your platform.
  2. Libraries: iOS has a TON of libraries that can be used with ease and some of them are in uTime 4. With project Catalyst with macOS Catalina, Mac users can use those libraries too!
  3. Stability: As stated earlier the current state of uTime 3 for macOS is kind of a big mess… iOS is a lot more refined and therefor I can add more features and fix bugs a lot more easily than the desktop counterpart. So by porting uTime 4 to macOS there will be a HUGE stability and performance upgrade.

However, for the people who will be on Mojave and lower you won’t be able to run uTime 4… So for those of you who can’t upgrade to Mac Catalina you will be able to still download uTime 3 from the App Store. However, I am considering uTime 3 now legacy software. Unless there is a huge software problem it would appear this is the end of life for a non universal uTime. Thank you for downloading and I hope you find the Catalyst edition to be as amazing if not better than the standalone Mac App.

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