It’s quite annoying when you have to pay two times to use the same app on Mac and iOS. Thankfully, you won’t have to do that anymore. Apple has added the ability for developers to enable universal purchases with the new XCode 11.4 beta dev tool.
As developer Steve Troughton-Smith pointed out on Twitter, if this option is enabled by the app developer, you can purchase an app on iOS and use it on Mac, and vice versa. He also noted that this feature inclusion was unexpected, and was rumored for a release in a couple of years.
Universal Purchase for Mac/iOS apps! ? pic.twitter.com/9yNrDmwvWD
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) February 5, 2020
What’s more, in-app purchases are also shared across the platform now. That’s some great unification. As 9to5Mac noted, Apple is also changing categories in both stores to support this new feature and calibrate them over platforms.
[Read: What is a macro lens and could it be the next big thing for phone cameras?]
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Currently, if you buy an app from the iOS App Store, you’ll be able to use it on the iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Now, this option will extend to your Mac too, if developers enable it.
Apple’s new feature will lure developers to make more catalyst apps — a project debuted by Apple with macOS Catalina (10.15) to make it easy for developers to port over apps they’ve written for iPhone or iPad to Mac.
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