Two changes in macOS 11.3 beta make running iPad apps on your Apple Silicon Mac way less annoying.
These changes might just be there to make using the app more pleasant.
Or perhaps Apple is getting ready for the launch of touch-screen Mac.
Timothy Muza / Unsplash
“Keyboards and trackpads are exactly the opposite of on-screen touch control.
The first iteration of iOS apps on the Mac was pretty poor.
Video apps like Hulu would not work full-screen.
Tara Shypka / Unsplash
Other apps might extend off the bottom of your desktop and be impossible to retrieve.
Or perhaps there were usability limits.
Despite this, being able to open a favorite iOS app on the Mac can be very handy.
These are ideal on the Mac.
Also great, even now, are apps that require minimal interaction.
A weather app perhaps, or a video app.
But the biggest hurdle to using iOS apps on the Mac is touch.
To help mimic the fluid touch controls of iOS, the Mac uses something called Touch Alternatives.
This sounds fine, but in practice its just terrible, forcing you into an all-or-nothing choice.
The 11.3 beta, however, breaks these alternatives out, with separate checkboxes for each.
Touch Screen Mac?
Does this improvement to iOS apps on the Mac point to touch-screen Macs?
But with Apple, who ever knows?
Mouse support on the iPad seemed impossible, until Apple announced the iPad Magic Keyboard and Trackpad.
Mouse support on iOS is excellent, but is secondary to the primary input method: touch.
