One of the key benefits of Apple moving the Mac to its M1 disk drive is that users can originally run iPhone and iPad applications. But this was one of the areas I never reached with my Mac Mini (M1) items. So let’s see how this compatibility works now, with the understanding that it’s a moving target and that things need to gradually improve going forward.
This kind of iPhone and iPad app compatibility depends on the M1 chip: Macs running on Intel hardware can only run applications converted by Catalyst for the Mac. But finding compatible iPhone and iPad apps are the first challenge. The quick response to Google gave the obvious answer: these apps are available in the Mac App Store, which makes sense. As far as I can see, Apple does not launch iPhone and iPad apps in the store, or offers a special area where you can find these apps. Instead, there are two major ways to install iPhone and iPad apps.
The first is to use search. For example, if you are looking for Microsoft Office in the Mac App Store, by default, you get a results page for Mac Apps. But you can rather select the “iPhone and iPads apps” link to see the available mobile apps.
These particular results are disappointing. The Mac Apps results include Microsoft 365, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and so on, as one would expect. But the results of the iPhone and iPad apps only show third-party apps and tools. Searching for terms like “Microsoft Word” works similarly.
So why is this? This is because the Mac App Store not just pops up every iPhone and iPad app for Mac users. Instead, developers should choose to include their mobile apps in the Mac App Store. And Microsoft, which already makes full-featured computer programs for Mac, chose not to do so.
The second method to find iPhone and iPad apps in the Mac App Store is to see the list of apps (and games) you previously downloaded to an i-Device. This is available via your profile photo at the bottom left of the Mac App Store: click here to display the account page, which shows your previously downloaded Mac apps in reverse chronological order. And then click on the “iPhone and iPad apps” link to view the apps.
As with the example above, this list will be filtered so that it only displays the applications you have downloaded in the Mac App Store. I do not know when I downloaded Microsoft Office for the iPhone for example, but it does not matter. It’s not there in the list. (Also a kind of switch to have these programs displayed alphabetically or by category would be nice.)
If you look closely at the applications that do appear, you will see that some are indicated with ‘Design for iPad’ (or iPhone). It is known that these programs also work on the Mac. Some apps have a note like ‘Design for iPhone’. Not verified for macOS, ”and this … well, it’s not really tested, so who knows how well it will work? I assume this simply means that the developer approves the app’s application in the Mac App Store (and hopes it shows some confidence in its compatibility and performance.)
To test how these apps work, I chose a few iPhone and iPad apps that I had downloaded before. HBO Max, for example, is designed for iPad and should therefore work well. It starts fast enough and seems to work well, and like other iPad apps, it appears in an iPad-shaped window that occupies only about 50 percent of the screen by default.
There is no way to resize it on its own, but you can at least maximize it, which makes the full screen, and in this mode there are empty areas left and right of the app screen, because iPads have 4: 3 screens and Macs have wider 16:10 screens.
After the initial excitement of seeing an iPad app run on the Mac, some harsh realities have emerged. By using HBO Max to play the movie The Hard, I can see that this wide aspect ratio movie now has black blank parts at the top and bottom of the movie, which is normal, and also on the right and left sides : Again, the app is oriented for a 4: 3 view, so you can not play the movie in real full screen mode.
(Red area indicates where the movie is playing, as you can not take a screenshot of it)
Just as bad, typical keyboard commands – like tapping the space bar for play / pause – do not work. Instead, use the mouse to mimic finger taps on the screen. So you can click in the middle of the screen to edit the controls, and then click the Play button to pause playback. It’s a little boring. (If you tap the Esc key while in full screen mode, the app will be moved back to the window, which is nice.)
This is of course app-specific. It’s possible for a developer to customize an iPhone or iPad app to work better on a Mac. HBO did not do this for HBO Max, and I think they will not, because they already have a complete web application that works well on the Mac. But it depends on them.
The iPhone game Doodle Jump is another warning: this game is now a few years old – apparently I only installed it on August 2, 2009 – but it’s listed as ‘Design for iPhone’, so it should work. If so, I never noticed it: Doodle Jump appears in a small iPhone-sized window and it also cannot be changed.
That said, the full-screen experience is pretty good and similar to what you see when using an iPhone app zoomed in on an iPad.
But playing Doodle Jump overcame my skills. You can tap on buttons like Play and Multiplayer to get things going, but once you’re in a game, it’s not clear how to control the small sprite on the screen. On a phone, you can tilt the device left and right to move, and you can touch the screen to shoot. On a Mac, it’s not necessary to tilt the thing I can, even if it clicks when the mouse pointer is over the game.
Are these two programs good examples of … anything? Maybe not. But when I think of the kinds of mobile apps I can see on a desktop system like the Mac, it’s a pretty short list. And Apple makes it boring to even find what’s there. I did a few searches for mobile applications I could suggest wanting to use, such as Spotify, Fitbit and Instagram, but none are currently available on the Mac. There are no Google Apps. No Microsoft programs. And so on
As this is a topic I will visit again in the future. For now, I will just say that the performance looks excellent and that compatibility is the biggest issue. Not just through availability, but because some of the available programs do not really work that elegantly. But I expect that to change.
Tagged with Apple M1, MacBook Pro