Amplify-ios: macOS support

[DanielZanchi]

Feature Request:
At the moment it's not possible to have Amplify on a macOS app.
SwiftUI is getting bigger and bigger and it would be awesome to have cross-platform apps working with Amplify.

Please make it possible!

[Kilo-Loco]

In addition to Apple's push to use SwiftUI as a means for cross platform apps within their ecosystem, Amplify Flutter will eventually need to cover this use case since desktop is a platform that will become stable in the near future.

In regards to priority between other Apple platforms within that ecosystem, supporting macOS seems to be the most important one to consider since there seems to be a push for creating macOS in the iOS community.

[diegocstn]

@DanielZanchi @Kilo-Loco Multi-platform support is one of our goals but we can't share a specific timeline at this point.
SDKs related issue https://github.com/aws-amplify/aws-sdk-ios/issues/1603#issuecomment-713711473

[robwithhair]

Speaking as someone who built an app around the aws-ios-sdk, only finding at a late stage that it didn't compile for Mac. It was deeply frustrating and expensive to re-implement functionality from the library with API calls. It would have been good to have had clear warning in the documentation at time of development. Caused us as a company to re-evaluate our use of AWS as a platform for future app development, due to slow response to the above mentioned thread and the clear lack of app developers as a priority.

As a company our policy is that if we build an app for iPhone, it should work on iPad. The latest Apple Silicon releases have caused us to extend this policy. Now if we build for iPhone, it should work on iPad and Mac, since there is typically very little additional work if designed correctly.

For the above reason we only maintain legacy projects on AWS. We have a spend of roughly $4,000 pcm but our development efforts are now going elsewhere at least until this issue is properly resolved.

[DanielZanchi]

Hello! I managed to use Amplify on a macOS app under Catalyst. It's not the best solution but I am going to build two completely different apps for iOS and macOS (both built with SwiftUI).
I understand the struggle :(

[robwithhair]

@DanielZanchi that's good to hear. It was mid 2019 when we started finding issues, so would you believe it's been nearly 2 years since this work was undertaken now and it doesn't feel like things have moved on much. However, I'm v happy to hear you managed to get Catalyst to build, cos it gives me hope we might be able to do the same at some point. I don't know if I would be able to convince my manager to give AWS another go after the fiasco of last time in a hurry though, so will have to wait for another project to come along to test the Catalyst support myself. It's a shame cos I've invested a lot of learning in the AWS ecosystem which I hardly use now. Fingers crossed AWS make native App developers a priority in the future.