Adobe Illustrator 30.0.0 showing as iOS app in System Information - Applications

neuroanatomist wrote:

The relevant information would be for Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud (CC). Here's the link, where it shows as an Apple Silicon app…

An iOS app runs on Apple silicon, potentially including on macOS.

This is what is shown in the original post, and what is happening in this case.

I suspect Adobe is doing Adobe things, and is building using something akin to Catalyst. If not Catalyst.

Local usage of Adobe apps ended a while back, so nothing local to check.

Adobe Illustrator appears to be an iOS / iPadOS app using Catalyst:

https://roaringapps.com/app/adobe-illustrator-cs6

Catalyst is a mechanism allowing iOS and iPadOS apps to run on and to use some of the features of macOS.

[Catalyst tutorial]

As for other options, there are llustrator alternatives. I use the Affinity apps, as well as Flying Meat’s Acorn, among others.

MrHoffman wrote:

Adobe Illustrator appears to be an iOS / iPadOS app using Catalyst:

https://roaringapps.com/app/adobe-illustrator-cs6

Thanks for the information about an exceptionally old piece of software. Adobe Illustrator Creative Suite 6 (the CS6 app your link points to) was launched with much fanfare in April, 2012 (13.5 years ago).

The relevant information would be for Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud (CC). Here's the link, where it shows as an Apple Silicon app.

https://roaringapps.com/app/adobe-illustrator,

I also see this, and it's not a macOS Tahoe issue because it shows the same thing on my Mac still running Sequoia.

Seems to have no functional effect, but only Adobe can fix the 'problem'.

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

Is there some other associated issue???

Otherwise I would forget about it— or as suggested above contact your third party developer.

For your third party app—if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/updates…

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support

MrHoffman wrote:

An iOS app runs on Apple silicon, potentially including on macOS.

This is what is shown in the original post, and what is happening in this case.

Th link you provided that stated the macOS version of the app was built with Catalyst is for Adobe Illustrator CS6, software from 2012. Just to clarify, are you really suggesting that over 13 years ago, which was 6 years before Apple launched Mac Catalyst with Mojave to enable iOS apps to bridge to macOS, that Adobe developed Illustrator for iOS 6 that was current at the time, and ported it to macOS with an Apple framework from 6 years in the future? Really? Did Adobe have a literal time machine? Seems far more likely that the information you linked to is bogus.

The correct link to the compatibility information on the current version of Illustrator (i.e., the one relevant to this discussion and not over a decade out of date and pretty clearly wrong) mentions nothing about Catalyst or iOS.

I suspect etresoft is correct and this is some cross-platform remnant in Illustrator that is confusing macOS.

The version downloaded automatically to an Apple Silicon Mac will not run on Intel. There would be a different download for Intel Macs, since Illustrator still supports them.

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/desktop/get-started/learn-the-basics/technical-requirements.html

Thanks also for the comment on Kind, which as you state shows up as Apple Silicon in Get Info but iOS in System Report. I believe that supports the idea that etresoft is correct about macOS being confused by something in the app, and that the well-intentioned efforts of MrHoffman were leading us down the rabbit hole.

You might want to ask Adobe.

markfromlandolakes wrote:

Does anyone else show Adobe Illustrator Version: 30.0.0 showing as an "iOS app" in "System Information" - Applications?

I can't afford Adobe apps.

However, your screenshot shows it as "identified developer". If it were an iOS app, it would show as "App Store".

Most likely, Adobe has some custom, cross-platform structure that's making the system think it's an iOS app. Mac developers are always dreaming up new ways to structure an app just to see if macOS will launch it. And then, when some minor macOS security update breaks it, well, that's an Apple bug, isn't it?

Seems that a comma got included in my link, somehow. Here is the correct link to the current Illustrator page on roaringapps.com.

https://roaringapps.com/app/adobe-illustrator