Netflix, one of the biggest video streaming services on the planet confirmed on Tuesday that the company will not be developing a native app for the macOS using Apple’s Catalyst Project.
Mac Catalyst is one of the biggest features of the macOS Catalina that was released on Monday. It allows developers to port iPad apps to the macOS without developing an entirely separate app.
According to Apple, porting an iPad app for the macOS is as easy as checking a box in Xcode (Apple’s development environment for macOS) with the Project Catalyst.
Earlier, rumors were that Netflix is one of the big developers planning to port its iPad app for Mac users. However, the company crushed the aspiration of users expecting a macOS app after the Tuesday announcement.
Unlike the Windows users who have a native app for watching Netflix, macOS users have to go to a web browser to do the same.
One might see this as nit-picking over nothing since it’s just one extra step. However, macOS users like me know that there are added advantages of having a native Netflix app.
A ported iPad Netflix app could have brought the feature of downloading Netflix movies and TV shows for offline viewing. Verge reports that a native app would have brought a picture in picture integration as well.
Bloomberg reports that many other developers are also having second thoughts for the Mac Catalyst Project after facing several problems in the macOS version of apps.
Troughton-Smith, a well-know developer noted that some video playback apps are not able to hide the mouse cursor while the video is playing. At the same time, Smith believes that Catalyst is the “future of Mac app development,” and these are just initial hiccups.
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