Apple will extend Universal Purchases to Mac & iOS apps in March

Apple has come with a new surprise for its app developer’s community. In an official announcement, Apple stated that they are going to enable universal purchase option to eliminate the annoying issue of paying two times for using the same ios apps on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV. Thankfully, you won’t have to perform this anymore. They will soon be able to sell their cross-platform apps as one universal purchase.

Developers, meanwhile, will be able to entice customers to buy their Mac and iOS apps together, or other combinations of apps. They’ll also be able to more easily sync customers’ in-app purchases and subscriptions across platforms.

The decided date for rolling out this new feature is March 2020.

In anticipation of the changes, the App Store categories will be unified together over the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, to make apps increasingly “discoverable,” Apple says.

Apple’s App Store classifications are once in a while updated, so this too is a striking change that will affect all developers — including those without an all universal app pack to sell. By listing their app in another category, top app developers may have superior taken shots at positioning higher on the list of Top ios apps, competing and contending in a current category nearby unmistakably more apps.

Key highlights of the update:

• On iOS, developers will have the option to list their app in two new categories: “Developers Tools” and “Graphic & Design.”
• The Mac App Store is increasing a few different categories originating from iOS, including “Books”, “Magazines & Newspapers”, “Food and Drink”, “Navigation” and “Shopping.”
• Furthermore, the “Photography” and “Video” categories on the Mac App Store will be consolidated into “Photo & Video”, to more sync up with iOS.
• Furthermore, “Kids” will never again be a subcategory inside “Games” on the Mac App Store.

Apple says either developer can decide to make another app for these platforms using a single app record in App Store Connect, or they can add platforms to an existing app record to exploit the new all universal purchase option. The feature will be empowered of course for Mac Catalyst apps and made accessible to non-Catalyst apps, as well.

Developers can download the Xcode 11.4 beta update released to begin, however, the choice doesn’t go live for general society until the March release date.

This is not the first occasion when that developers have had the option to disperse their apps together as one purchase, to be clear. If you’ve at any point purchased an iPhone app and picked up the iPad or Apple Watch app nearby it, for instance, you are as of now acquainted with this general buy alternative. What’s happening is that Apple is presently carrying this equivalent usefulness to Mac applications just because.

A universal purchase doesn’t bode well for all apps, so developers should gauge the upsides and downsides for themselves, in light of how they need to work together. But, the option represents a significant step in bringing together the different app ecosystems Apple offers, which could spike more Mac app development & iPhone app development in years to come.

The Xcode beta is also released nearby different macOS and iOS betas, which together are bringing new features like those that screen time communication restrains on Mac, head pointer tech for Mac, new Memoji stickers, CarPlay updates, and iCloud folder sharing.