When Apple released macOS 14.6 Sonoma, Howard Oakley noted that the previous release candidate addressed a bug that fixed app crashes when running iPhone and iPad apps on Apple silicon Macs. Since I’ve used an iPhone app on my M1 MacBook Air only once to prove it could be done, my snarky thought upon reading that was, “How did anyone notice?”
If you use iPhone and iPad apps on your Mac, tell us which apps and why.
I know regularly and occasionally are vague—if you need a timeframe, consider Regularly to be at least weekly and Occasionally to be every month or two. Choose Never if you’ve tried using iPhone or iPad apps on your Mac but didn’t find it worth continuing.
If you don’t have an Apple silicon Mac, you’re welcome to participate in the discussion, but please don’t vote in the poll.
How often do you use iPhone or iPad apps on your M-series Mac?
I tried PreSonus’ music notation app, Notion Mobile for awhile. Unfortunately, I found the results rather predictable. It was very clunky for any Mac desktop app, and terrible compared to their actual desktop app (which I’ve used for years). On my 12" iPad, it wasn’t nearly as easy to use as their earlier iOS app. It was neither one nor the other. I’ve just about quit using my iPad for notation now. If they actually replaced their desktop app with it, I would finally have to go with Sibelius or Finale.
I don’t use iPhone/iPad apps on my Mac today, but I can see a few cases where I might.
For example, I have some accounts with a bank whose business banking website is frankly clunky and archaic. On the other hand, its iOS/iPad apps are simple and efficient. While the website is much more comprehensive in terms of business capabilities, it is much easier to perform my most common workflows through the apps. It may be worth it for me to install one of the apps on my Mac.
Of course, that would be true for any iDevice app that has no direct equivalent on the Mac. For example, I note that Authy recently discontinued its Mac app. I don’t know if Authy’s iOS app works well on a Mac, but if so, perhaps it would be helpful to some users.
I have a lot of Wyze devices and I use their iOS app on my Mac to see my cameras, turn on my sprinklers, control my router, and other features. When I first tried it years ago when Apple first started allowing that feature it was rather buggy (it could get stuck in the wrong orientation or quit) and not all aspects of the app worked, but for the last year or so it’s been very good. I don’t know if the company actually tests it on Macs or not, but the bugs seemed to be worked out and it’s amazing how well it works. I can even capture a photo from one of my Wyze cameras and it puts it onto the camera roll just like from iPhone (that didn’t use to work).
It’s not quite a full-fledged Mac app – you can’t resize the window, for instance – but that’s a minor quibble. It’s just great being able to access the same app on Mac as on my iDevices. I just wish it worked on Apple TV so I could see my camera feeds there!
Yep! I use the apps for my front door lock, my air conditioners, local radio station for streaming and the MLB app (which is very buggy, if it actually launches)!
I use the CLZ Books database (and occasionally CLZ Movies). The publisher had a MacOS version for some time, but abandoned it a few years ago in favor of a web-based interface. Being able to run the iPadOS version is a delight, though the interface isn’t as clean as the old Mac-native application.
Sometimes I’ve run Overcast as well, but not frequently. My kids have used a couple of games but I don’t recall which ones offhand.
Because I haven’t used an iPhone or iPad app since I first learned I could do it, this would have been Never, had the question not prompted me to load the iOS app for my smartlock/video doorbell, which I hadn’t thought about doing. It seems to work fine.
In tech terms, I’m a dinosaur. I much prefer my Mac (24", M3 2023 Mac) to my iPhone / any phone
love the Mac versions of iMessage, WhatsApp, and Fantastical. In particular, for the former two the ability to quickly type a long message (when required) is a godsend for my goofy fingers. For some of the rest it depends on the “app” or often website vs App.
I use Yr (weather app) and Scanful (QR/barcode app) on my Mac, though the latter only very occasionally.
I voted ‘Regularly’ because although I don’t always open the Yr app on my Mac weekly (but sometimes I use it more), I have the widget permanently on the bottom right of my desktop.
I’ve been using the Cisco Secure Client iPad app on my Mac because updates to the Mac native app were difficult to obtain. I used it to connect to our corporate WAN via VPN. We’re now deploying a SASE solution and I’m one of the pilot/beta users so I haven’t used the app for the past three months. By the end of the day, it’s a VPN tool and it worked so I was a happy camper.
Which prompted a “Why not?” so I downloaded Luma (fantastic editor) and my Irish Times e-paper app, and of course to get bit meta… DiscourseHub which I read this site in normally.
