Late last night, the iOS App Store experienced a wide scale bug that affected the listings of hundreds of apps. Under the app’s “Requirements” listing, a new product became listed as possibly compatible with iOS apps after iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad: “ix.Mac.MarketingName.”
What does it mean? Possibly and even probably nothing, but the “Mac” designation in the string implies a Mac that can run iOS apps.
Some are theorizing, in fact, that “ix.Mac.MarketingName” might be an iOS emulator for Lion that allows users to emulate iOS apps on their Macs, an analogue of the iPhone Simulator already available to developers, but for consumers.
Another possibility is the convergence of the iOS App Store with the Mac App Store, or even the possibility of universal apps that work without modification on iOS or OS X.
Or, like we said before, it could just be a bug and a random string of numbers. But I think Apple’s eventual intention is to get iOS onto the Mac one way or another. Apple’s been doing a lot of work on multitouch on the desktop over the last couple of years, making sure that every Mac shipped today has a multitouch interface shipped with it. They intend to use those interfaces for something bolder than gestural shortcuts.
