Several people have asked how they can check whether an App Store – or any other – app uses Catalyst, Apple’s new cross-platform development system which makes it easier to port iPadOS apps to run on macOS. Here’s a new version of my free utility ArchiChect which does just that, and a little more besides.

You can of course look inside an app, at its Info.plist, and see whether the app’s ID starts with the term maccatalyst, which indicates that app has been built using Catalyst. Here’s what ArchiChect 2.1 now shows:

There are two new boxes, one to indicate whether an app was built using the Catalina SDK, the other to show whether it uses Catalyst, as manifest using the special app ID prefix. These work regardless of which version of macOS, from Sierra onwards, on which you check the app, and are not dependent on running on Catalina.

This update also:

• fixes a bug which hid the busy spinner when it was busy! This now ensures that you can see when ArchiChect is waiting for signature checks to return;
• re-orders and improves detailed reporting in the scrolling view in the lower part of the window, and in saved text reports.

ArchiChect version 2.1 is now available from here: archichect21
from Downloads above, and from its Product Page.