Ok Mike, love your app, but this is going to be a little rant, so I apologize in advance for the negativity. It's impossible not to be a little negative when you see that this thread dates back to 2005.
I've been using pleco for about seven years and, from about 2016, when I started some casual translation work, I purchased some dictionary add-ons and got interested in the possibility of a desktop version. I tried the chrome-welder solution that was available for a while (and was dissatisfied with it due to stability issues) and more recently received the news about Catalyst with some optimist. I didn't realize this debate goes back one and a half decades. It started in 2005 when Mike said customers would see a desktop version some time "in 2006". Now, I get it, iPhone came around and I grant this to you that focusing on that platform at the time was the absolutely right decision. You made a blockbuster little app and made Pleco economically viable as a company. Then came Android, also a must-have platform, and desktop kept being postponed. In 2010 the iPad came around and you said you hoped that'd reduce demand for desktop pleco (an argument similar to the one you made more recently when mouse+ trackpad support for iPad was announced). Back then you were still saying that a Mac port was relatively easy to make from the iOS version, and even ideas like a Linux version were floated. Then there were licensing issues ($$$). I get that too, those are real. The point is that Pleco desktop might not be viable from a business perspective, just not worth the effort in terms of financial returns. That might be true, and I don't think anyone should ask devs to work for nothing or for peanuts. But Apple will now allow iOS apps to run natively on new ARM macs if only devs give the green light. That gives you some options:
1 - Decide that you can turn a profit on desktop apps, roll up your sleeves and announce that Pleco's now working on desktops versions to be marketed at an extra $. That's fair game.
2 - Concede that there is no viable business model for desktop Pleco and/or that you're not willing to take the time to make it real for the expected financial returns. But in that case throw your user base a bone and just allow iOS pleco to run on those new macs when they're released. I think that if a desktop version were profitable it'd exist by now, but that's just my layman's opinion.
3 - None of the above. It's your app and you decide what you want to do with it and how you want to sell it. But if that's the case, please take a hint from the corps playbook, say that Pleco is a company that produces software for mobile platforms and that you don't discuss planned/unreleased products. Just close this thread and stop talking about it, because after fifteen years it's just a little sad to keep coming back to this.
That's it, rant's over. Other than that, Pleco's awesome. I'll continue to use and recommend it even if it's just mobile. Peace.
