Mac OS X Apps on Zaurus

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller reports progress in the mySTEP project to run Mac OS X applications on the Sharp Zaurus. Though not yet ready for production, the newest release brings more maturity and features, and Dr. Schaller invites anyone interested in integrating mobile, low-cost, handheld computers with Mac OS X-based IT applications to contact the project. In particular, Dr. Schaller would like to locate someone interested in developing and contributing a new menu system (NSMenuView, NSMenuItemCell) to the project."

Comments

How about an OS X Sync solution!?

[Xystance]

As excited as this makes me, it's tough to hear. I purchased a Zaurus SL-5500 almost a year ago, and I waited... 6 months for firmware 2.38 to be syncable with anything on OS X, and even then I had to use Qtopia Desktop for everything (As opposed to Ximian Evolution or Microsoft Entourage). Then Firmware 3.10 broke sync ability. I gave up 6 months later and sold it. I would LOVE to purchase one again now that it's close to running openstep apps, however... Not without either a Microsoft Entourage or Ximian Evolution sync solution!

*sigh*

[FredFnord]

Well, uh, no.

This guy is taking the 'OpenSTEP' API set, which was opened up and published by NeXT, of which GNUStep is a legal implementation, and porting it (via GNUStep) to a handheld.

So that one can enjoy MacOS X applications on a handheld device.

Now, I'm not sure 'enjoy' is the right word, since on my 2304 x 870 screen setup (two 21" monitors) I still feel like I could use more desktop space for MacOS X. I cringe at the thought of a handheld running it. But at worst it's a solecism, not a ripping off of Apple. They published the APIs, someone else came along and made another implementation (with NeXT's blessing, if I recall correctly), and this guy is porting it to a handheld and updating it a little to be more compatible with MacOS X.

In summary: lighten up. You're sounding like the type that gives us Mac users a bad name.

-fred

Re:If they can do this ...

[Chucker23N]

" Even if it wasn't Mac specific (which it is, and HFS specific, and big-endian specific...) it would take a good team a long, long time to get Carbon to work multiplatform."

Um, no, it's not. QuickTime for Windows is, and has always been, pretty much a lightweight but complete Mac OS Toolbox implementation, and Carbon is just a modernized Mac OS Toolbox. That's why iTunes for Windows was so damn easy to port - it's Carbon, and little more.

Writing an app that utilizes QuickTime is hardly different from writing an app that utilizes Carbon.

Re:Afraid not...

[FredFnord]

1) Preference panes are Apple technologes

In what way? The System Preferences panel is not really in any way different than any one of a dozen implementations of preferences for a dozen other programs. There's nothing new there. Admittedly, if it looks identical to the Apple implementation, *IDENTICAL*, then it's a bit of a rip. But nothing too exciting.

2) Menu extras are Apple technologies.

Okay. What's a Menu Extra?

3) The Finder is an Apple technology.

This specifically doesn't run the finder, it runs something vaguely similar that he's putting together himself.

Unless what you really mean is 'anything called 'The Finder' is an Apple technology.' Or 'anything that looks kind of like the Apple Finder is a rip-off,' in which case basically every OS's GUI that is even vaguely usable today is a rip-off. I explicitly include some of the better Linux GUI work.

4) Cocoa (not OpenStep, but Cocoa) is an Apple technology.

Look, here's how you create a new window in Cocoa:

NSWindow *myWindow = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect myContentRectangle
styleMask:(NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask)
backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered
defer:NO];

(c.f. documentation here:)
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/C ocoa/Ref erence/ApplicationKit/ObjC_classic/Classes/NSWindo w.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000013/BCIBIAJJ

And here's how you create one in OpenStep:

NSWindow *myWindow = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect myContentRectangle
styleMask:(NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask)
backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered
defer:NO];

(c.f. documentation here:)
http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/802-2112/6i63mn 62p?q=ns window&a=view

Now, may I remind you that this is a WINDOW. In MacOS X, it's got colorful lickable widgets, it's displayed in Display PDF, it's got Quartz Extreme accelerating it (and is therefore drawn totally differently in some cases than in others.) In contrast, in Solaris OpenStep, it's displayed in X, and in Display Postscript in NeXTStep, its widgets look completely different, it has three different kinds of graphics implementations, it does different things when you click and drag in it, and just in general it behaves very differently than it does on the Mac. So this isn't some kind of 'really similar' special case. This is representative of the whole language.

Now, given that, I'm leaving you to guess how different Cocoa and NeXTStep/OpenStep actually are.

-fred