With the announcement of Apple’s UIkit (aka Project Catalyst) will we see Unity being ported to iPadOS?
What is there to port? My understanding is that it’s basically just a rebranded iOS.
To over-simplify it, Catalyst seeks to unify the app development process for ios/pados/macos. Much in the same way that unity supports multiple platforms using a single project.
That said, not anytime in the near future. Catalyst is a few years away in general. And I would suspect it would highly unlikely that the editor would be ported. Development applications are vastly different than chat and news “apps”. It may be possible, but likely not without a lot of work from Unity. The market for developers ‘needing’ a game engine/editor on a tablet is minimal to say the least.
Maybe not a direct port as the underlying code would need to support iPadOS and its new file system, use of the Apple Pencil and finger gestures vs using a mouse. I’ve tinkered with Unity and Blender using Luna Display over the same Network and it is usable. It just takes a different mindset to get used to it. I’m sure with iPadOS now supporting full customization of a mouse and improved code it’s only a matter of time before we see either Unity or another major developer release either a stripped down version that offers for example character modelling or a full version of their software that was once only used on laptops and desktops. Several years ago there were those in the industry that ”pro” software can only be used on workstations and those same few balked at the idea of anything pro running on a laptop. Before that it was pro software that only ran on $50k systems only found in large studios. It only took Autodesk to take the leap with Maya after redesigning it from Power Animator to use on low end graphics cards for others to follow their lead. Question remains will Unity be first or last to make the leap to iPadOS?
…I’m not really sure what Catalyst offers that Unity doesn’t have built in.
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Luna is just streaming video (and input mapping), that is not remotely the same as creating a native application. Unity currently barely supports pen devices now, and the linux port has been in beta for like 4 years. We don’t even fully know yet how far Catalyst will go with full OS features. Pretty much we’ll need to have it running xcode and be able to compile apps for it to be even viable. And that isn’t a for sure thing yet. Its going to be a few years before Catalyst comes to fruition and the form is known. Who know what and where Unity will be then. They have have a ton on thier plate to finish before working on alternate, untested platforms. And given their usual timeline if it even happens… 5 or more years… possibly longer.