• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 20, 2017

In an effort to connect its desktop and mobile stores, Apple might let developers create apps with cross-platform compatibility, in 2018.

That’s according to a report in Bloomberg, which has yet to be confirmed by the tech titan.

With the would-be change, Apple is hoping the success of its mobile app business will rub off on its stagnant desktop app marketplace. Increasingly core to its fortunes, Apple recently relaunched its iOS App Store with a major focus on discovery.

Coinciding with the release of iOS 11, the new App Store also spotlighted lesser-known developers through interviews and other editorial efforts.

As part of the revamp, Apple also separated games, which brought some order to the App Store’s offerings, and sought to give less flashy apps more room to stand out.

Suggesting a healthy app economy, downloads across Apple’s App Store and Google Play increased more than 8% over the past year, App Annie recently found.

New app downloads -- not including reinstalls or updates -- approached 26 billion worldwide, the app specialist found. Thanks to all those downloads, total app revenue approached $17 billion, which represented a 28% annual increase.

There are several factors driving growth in downloads and consumer spend, but the main reason is that users are spending more time with apps, according to Amir Ghodrati, director of market insights at App Annie.

Among Android users, total time spent in apps worldwide came close to 325 billion hours in the third quarter of the year, which represented a 40% increase.

“This significant uptick in time spent further illustrates the rise in new smartphone users adopting mobile as their primary screen in emerging markets as well as preference for streaming services across the Entertainment category growing significantly in mature markets,” Ghodrati said in the recent report.