Run Windows Applications Natively in OS X? 521
mcho writes "Unlike other speculators, who get no spam, Robert X. Cringely offers an intriguing reason behind Apple's recent strategy of Boot Camp. From the article: 'I believe that Apple will offer Windows Vista as an option for those big customers who demand it, but I also believe that Apple will offer in OS X 10.5 the ability to run native Windows XP applications with no copy of XP installed on the machine at all. This will be accomplished not by using compatibility middleware like Wine, but rather by Apple implementing the Windows API directly in OS X 10.5.'
What's the incentive to write a program for OS X.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS (Score:2, Insightful)
anyway, i'm doubtful this will happen - as then apple would probably have to support it.
As usual.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) There is no way in hell Microsoft would document their API to the level necessary to allow Apple to duplicate it.
2) It's blatantly obvious he doesn't understand precisely what Wine is. Remember: Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's a built-from-scratch implementation of the Windows API.
Idiot.
Unlikely... (Score:3, Insightful)
YHBT! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's understandable because Apple has made some radical moves lately (Intel, Windows), so the Mac Zealot's universe must seem like it's in total flux. No longer can they confidently predict Apple's next move using their supposed expertise in everything-apple. If Apple will put Windows on Macs, pretty much anything goes!
Obviously these columnists sense the uncertainly and are having fun stirring things up a bit. Anyway, before you fire off your 1000 word point-by-point response denouncing Cringely, keep in mind he probably wrote this column in 15 minutes while high on cough medicine.
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS (Score:4, Insightful)
People credit Apple for how apps are consistently Mac-like and interoperate with each other, but the users are the ultimate enforcers. Any developer who steps out of line is crucified.
Cue European Commision (Score:3, Insightful)
And because of that, they're losing 2 million euros a-day...
Re:As usual.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I think it's doubtful for that reason.
Don't naysay too loudly... (Score:4, Insightful)
"The Windows API" (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been at least three projects that I know of (Wine, OS/2 Warp 4, and ReactOS) that have tried to do implementations of the Win32 API. OS/2s implementation never truly got off the ground (and was neither able to run native Win32 code, nor was it even reasonably complete). Wine and ReactOS have both been fighting a Sisyphean battle with Microsoft throughout the life of their projects.
Then, you need to add in the fact that Apple has historically been very jealous of their user experience. I don't expect that Apple would ever release something like this unless and until it was impossible to distinguish a Win32 application from a native app.
Don't get me wrong: I'd love to see it (it would provide justification that I could use on the spouse for upgrading our G4 MiniMac). I just think that Cringely needs to put down crack pipe and slowly back away.
Re:It's a nice idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well they'll need it to boot Linux actually [onmac.net]...
Re:Moderation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tap, tap, tap, .. there's no place like OS X... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it will come true, except for the part about "not requiring an installed copy of WinXP". What Cringely is proposing is just silly: he thinks that Apple can essentially write its own implementation of WINE, but somehow won't suffer from all the problems that WINE has. If you think that strategy works well, look at what happened when OS/2 tried it.
On the other hand, adding a spiffed-out VMWare-style layer would be much easier for Apple to do, would leave most of the maintenance/compatibility problems for Microsoft to deal with, and would be less likely to piss off Microsoft's legions of winged monkeys (since they would still get money from Mac users buying WinXP sales).
Trying to implement Microsoft's APIs natively is foolish: even if Apple somehow got them to work reliably in a foreign OS (fat chance considering the trouble Microsoft has getting them to work reliably in the native OS), things would break every time Microsoft released another service pack. Apple would spend the rest of their lives chasing Windows compatibility bugs.
Re:Uhhh... hello. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wine vs Windows API (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine Apple could pull a better OS2 than IBM. Security, stability plus consumer appeal plus Windows compatibility.
Even if all this is speculation, it probably gives Messrs Dell and Gates nightmares.
Re:As usual.... (Score:3, Insightful)
There would be no point (other than academic) in Wine being "cleaner" than Microsoft's implementation of the Windows API if it meant that software that runs on Windows couldn't run under Wine.
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That would actually be the major reason not to (Score:5, Insightful)
One could argue that Apple sees only a very small percentage of game and "non-core" ports anyway, so they wouldn't be losing very much.
(There's a wishful-thinking at work in the Mac community that eventually major software houses will come around, but the reality is that most desktop apps are just too tied to Windows for that to happen.)
I always disliked the impression that OS/2 failed because of WinAPI support. To the extent OS/2 succeeded, it was because it was sold as a "Better Windows Than Windows". And OS/2 was reasonably successful with a marketshare about the size of Apple's.
There's many more reasons one can find for OS/2 ultimate destruction. It wasn't a very technically sound design -- IBM spent zillons on a expensive Mach-based rewrite that failed. It was largely mismarketed by IBM first targetting "enterprise" customers, and then oddly "consumers". And the touted features like the object-desktop were ugly and poorly executed.
Re:Read the &*^%$*&%$ Article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That would actually be the major reason not to (Score:2, Insightful)
1. OS/2 required more resources to run (I remember building machines in the very early 90s and having to add $300 more in memory and disk to make OS/2 run, compared to MSWin3), and had pretty much no native apps. OS X requires about the same resources as XP, and has lots of native apps.
2. The is not the 90s. Having native apps is much less important than it used to be. On my powerbook I run MSOffice, an e-mail client, iTunes, and a web browser. And the e-mail client I could run on a web browser if I wanted to. I quite easily transition between my powerbook, my windows box at home and the Linux box on my desktop because 70% of what I run are web apps, delivered on my browser. As long as I have firefox I can use anything I want. Then there's 20% of office stuff that I can do on OpenOffice if I need. The remaining stuff is things like Quicken that really should be java/web app.
Having a popular platform was terribly important in the 90s, but today all you need is a port of Openoffice and Firefox, and you can use any operating system that you want.
Re:Bonzai Buddy!!! Yea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As usual.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, the real world will be a shock to you! The first Rule an engineer learns on the job is "the vendor is a lying bastard". This applies to the software world as well. Documentation is the starting point for using an API, but the actual functionality can only be determined by experimentation.
You start with a program that "should work" according to the API documentation, then you refer to Rule 1, then you start changing stuff until the code actually works, and you ship. Then, of course, half your stuff breaks with the next MS OS that "didn't change anything" in that API. I'm frankly amazed at what a good job the WINE guys do, considering.
Re:Read the &*^%$*&%$ Article (Score:2, Insightful)
Mountain from a mole hill (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"The Windows API" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't that what Ruby on Rails is for?
http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/CRUD [rubyonrails.org]
trichard
Re:YHBT! (Score:1, Insightful)
yeah, just look at all the ads on that PBS page...
Close - but actually - Apple will implement .NET (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's a nice idea... (Score:2, Insightful)
During that upgrade cycle, regardless of MS's assurances, there's going to be substantial fear of your legacy apps breaking during the transition. If at that point Apple's offering on the market will allow you to run all/most of your old XP apps, though, then the Vista vs. OS X choice becomes a much more apples-to-apples comparison:
1. Either way, I'm paying for a new OS license and associated hardware
2. Either way, I run the risk of some of my old apps breaking, but chances are, most of them will work.
3. Either way, any application upgrades and new apps that take advantage of the new OS are going to cost me.
With just Boot Camp, (1) skews in favor of Wintel, since you'd have to buy an OS license; and (2) skews in favor of Wintel, since you'd have to reboot to use your old apps.
So now, for the first time, your system purchase decision becomes entirely a question of the user experience and the capabilities of new applications that you will actually be purchasing, and not a question of what you're losing in the transition.
Porting Windows API not that easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Porting Win32 is hard enough, but I can tell you Apple has neither time nor resources to port the entire WinFX framework.
And this, besides making it easy for devs to make Vista apps, is the whole reason WinFX exists in first place, to lock apps further into Windows with a sophisticated, very flexible and capable, yet simple to use framework.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Noooo! (Score:4, Insightful)
That would suck. Apple has pretty good interface guidlines. "Preferences" is 3rd option in App menu. It's not Tools->Prefs, View->Options, File->Properties, View->Customize, Edit->Configuration, etc.
DarWINE is fine, but I don't want Windows app and their (un)usability officialy made "native" for OS X.
Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is the deal, codeweavers have been working their asses off to get win32 apps to run on linux. Thus far they have barely scratched the surface and can only run like
The only thing Codeweavers brings to the table for Apple is possibly the ability to help devs port apps to OS X X86. My guess is that if most vendors are not making their apps available on OS X it sure as hell isn't due to difficulty in porting but rather has more to do with the limited ROI of making apps for OS X in the firstplace.
Hybrid approach - win32 as a Cocoa API (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple would get the Windows apps, and Windows devs who would really like to build native OS/X apps would have a way to feasibly do that. Some 'porting' work required, but far short of a total rewrite.
That would be really great.
And if they were to release the resulting technology back to the WINE folks so the same thing could be done to get a 'native' Linux port, well that would be fabulous.
And once the market shares of OS/X and Linux are there, then we can worry about migration paths to truly portable apps (via QT, etc). Or not, if they do a good enough job of making WIN32 'native'.
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of them prefer to use Safari apparently just because it looks better. I still haven't figured what was the big deal with Firefox (other than it taking longer to load).
As a longtime Unix user, having used desktops with a mix of Athena, Motif, Tk, and whatever else was used at the time and now a mix of KDe and Gnome apps, something really has to really look weird for me to notice it. But those Mac users have a piercing eyeseight.
"There's at least 4 pixels missing in the shadow of the third icon of the toolbar, no way this crap is running on my screen !"