Original MacOS X ran unmodified apps for original Mac (which they called Classic) using emulation, slightly modified apps for the original Mac (recomplied to Carbon APIs) or slightly-modified NeXTStep apps (using Cocoa APIs AND InterfaceBuilder which became part of Xcode), or even slightly-modified Unix apps (using POSIX APIs) along with AppleScript for automation. There were few NeXTStep/Cocoa apps, except for simple graphical wrappers around POSIX apps. Then Apple started killing off APIs (including Carbon), changing functionality and picking winners/losers to drive the developers to retrain, rewrite and maintain their code base for Cocoa, which most did not do, leaving Mac OS native apps to languish for many years (sort of similar situation to AppleWatchOS), especially after the codebase was forked to become iOS. However, HTML5 apps were on the rise and WebKit sort of kept the Mac hardware sales going. Then, a year ago, Apple introduced the ability to run iPad apps on new Macs and rolled out SwiftUI (which, when it works, can target either iPad or macOS natively), which is sort of the final nail in the coffin for Cocoa.
yes, and.. "Apple started killing off APIs (including Carbon)"
there was some transition time when Apple published Carbon interfaces to Mac OS 9 devs (like me), stating that they were "transitional". Quite skeptical, I used them to rebuild some tools and apps in CodeWarrior. Within a short time, more updates had less Carbon, and the news came out that Codewarrior was locked out of OSX -- no deal. It was obvious that the Mac OS 9 interfaces were for chumps, and who wants to be a chump. It was true, and things changed.
yep, dangerous business calling out Apple these days tho. The only thing particularly relevant to the New Peoples on here is the takeaway that Apple has, can and will change its APIs as a means of exercising market and labor control any. time. they. want. to. It's in their DNA because their leadership came up in a time when these mechanisms were off-radar of labor regulators and the FTC (that they perceived to then be as relevant as modern day Bitcoiners surely perceive the SEC to be). The worst example was probably OpenDoc, but there are plenty of others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent Can still hear batshit criminals (now with personal fortunes worth $134B) talking about their "right" to innovate...(ie, F with the APIs) In looking at what's happening with Section 230 Reform, one can't help but wonder if the current dystopia could have been avoided had Congress given such attention to operating system APIs in the pre-AppStore/pre-HTML5 era.
