Apple has announced that they will be updating their Xcode 11.4 Beta to include the option of universal purchases across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS platforms. They also updated app categories to be more unified across the App Store and Mac App Store to work along with the unified purchasing.
What this entails for consumers is that they will be able to purchase an app from the store just once and have it available across all of Apple’s platform, if the developer chooses. Developers can also choose to sync customers’ in-app purchases and subscriptions across all these platforms.
To support this change and to make it easier for customers to find an app, Apple is making changes to the categories in both the App Store and Mac Store. For iOS developers, apps can be categorised under “Developer Tools” and “Graphics & Design”. MacOS app categories will now have “Books”, “Food & Drink”, “Magazines & Newspapers”, “Navigation”, and “Shopping”. Photo and video apps for the Mac App Store have now been combined from “Photography” and “Video” to “Photo & Video”. And lastly “Kids” will no longer be a subcategory within “Games” on the Mac App Store.
The updates will come in effect starting March 2020 and developers can make changes for these updates right now with the latest version of Xcode 11.4 beta. They will have the option to either create a new app for these platforms or add platforms to your existing app record.