Thread by @chockenberry

Hopefully you've had a chance to read my post about Marzipan by now:

blog.iconfactory.com/2019/05/what-t…

Here's a thread of some thoughts that didn't make it into the post (it was already too long!)

Marzipan is obviously the next thing. But there are hints that this is just a first step in a much larger vision from Apple. What might that look like?

There have been rumors about iPads with mice and Macs with touch screens.

Crossing the streams between platforms seems like an interaction nightmare, right?

You could have said the same thing at one point about different screen sizes on iOS devices (and, in fact, having different sizes was a nightmare at one point.)

But auto layout and size classes solved that problem. It's still not _easy_ but it's not insurmountable.

So what if a similar system came along that adapted to devices? Call them "interaction classes".

Your apps could know if it had a mouse or not. Or a touchscreen. Or augmented reality. Or …

Some of the system could adapt automatically - like the frames around views changing when you rotate a device or put it in split screen.

So you connect a mouse and controls in your app get smaller and an auto layout pass.

Correspondingly, when you get a touch screen Mac, controls get larger.

But there would also be other non-visual changes. Like the difference between a mouse dragging and a finger scrolling would change.

Some interaction classes would have hover states, others would not.

This is obviously a radical change. And would probably mean that both AppKit and UIKit would be deprecated.

There would be a lot of code to rewrite, but apps would be freed from knowing the details of user interactions.

I think this is especially important when you consider all the new interaction types that are on the near horizon: augmented reality and/or voice control.

It's also a bold and pragmatic change that Apple is famous for. No one else in the industry is doing it either…

There is a long history of "cross platform frameworks" that suck. We've been down that road many times and always end up in the same place.

Cross platform interactions would be totally new and very forward thinking.

There's also no doubt in my mind that this new Kit would be Swift-only (remember, forward thinking!)

And unlike Marzipan, it won't be something where the old & new can coexist. It's a fresh start for EVERYTHING.

Or I could just be full of shit.

/end