Codeweavers to Support Mac OS X on Intel

An anonymous reader submits "It's official. CodeWeavers is planning to support Mac OS X on Intel chips. Many say this could stifle Windows to OS X ports of apps, but nonetheless this may make it a lot easier for people to switch to OS X from Windows."

Comments

To save you reading slashdot...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...I'm listing some of the upcoming stories in advance here:

1. Microsoft will be developing Office for Mac on Intel
2. Blizzard will be developing games for Mac on Intel
3. Intel will start developing compilers for Mac on Intel
4. gcc will continue to be developed for Mac on Intel
5. Some current game developers who don't develop Mac games will now develop games for Mac on Intel
6. Some current application developers who don't develop Mac games will now develop application for Mac on Intel
7. Some PowerPC based software will no longer be developed for Mac on Intel
8. Virtual machines allowing you to run Windows will be developed for Mac on Intel
9. Some companies who currently don't develop device drivers for Macs will now develop them for Mac on Intel
10. Some open source projects will now be developed for Mac on Intel
11. Some open source projects currently being developed for Mac on PowerPC will no longer be developed for Mac on Intel
12. Some company, probably in the Far East, will develop hard drives that store more data than current hard drives.

I'm thinking of maybe getting a job as a pundit so I can get paid for this and have people respect me as an expert. Any suggestions where I should send my resume?

Correction

[bluGill]

This is not a company making a GUI on top of Wine. This is a company that hired the most active WINE developers and told them to focus on getting programing like Microsoft Office and iTunes working in Wine. They provide support for anyone who wants to use Wine but needs help. This includes those looking for an easy port to of their Windows Application to Linux, and those who just want to see more applications work on Linux that are now Windows only.

True it only works with certain programs. However there are more are more all the time.

Good Apps

[NardofDoom]

One of the things I've loved about being a Mac user is the really great applications from small developers. Delicious Library, Adium, Transmit, Burning Monkey Solitaire, OmniGraffle; all great apps.

While I'm sure that these great apps won't go away once we switch to Intel, I'm afraid they'll get lost in the dreck that's out there for PCs as things get ported over.

Re:Good Apps

[Absentminded-Artist]

I respectfully disagree. How did you hear about Delicious Library? It created buzz. Even though there had been how many countless "categorize your comics/videos/games/books into a searchable database" apps out there Delicious Library still turned heads. Same with the other apps. Word of mouth and positive reviews push certain apps to the top. The only thing that I think gigabytes of dreck will do for the Mac software community is make it harder for the cream to rise to the top, but the cream will still rise.

A lot of people are bemoaning the fact that with apps being able to run natively in Windows mode on the Macintels that nobody will bother porting their apps over to OSX. Although there will be some lazy/cheap idiot developers out there who will take this approach native OSX apps will get the buzz and the recommendations and ultimately the sales.

Although I am very excited about running my favorite PC fractal apps in Windows mode on Macintels (http://www.cootey.com/fractals/) I still look forward to the day that a Mac developer brings a fractal app to OS X that outperforms UltraFractal (and my UI favorite Fractal eXtreme) by taking advantage of Quartz Extreme, etc. (Yeah, I envision something called iFrac - Photoshop crossed with iMovie). If a better OS X fractal app appeared, I would switch to it even though I've been using the PC ones for years.

That's my optimistic outtake on it anyway. I think apps will be rewarded with positive press if they come out native and Mac users will push those apps over PC ones. But we'll still have access to the PC ones if they don't have correlations on the Mac side. I see it as win-win.

Re:I'm somewhat confused

[Curtman]

Were you thinking of Codewarrior maybe?

Mac Users are not impressed by ports.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many say this could stifle Windows to OS X ports of app"

I just downloaded NeoOffice/J for the Mac and man is it ugly.

Mac users won't tolerate bad ports of useful apps. They might tolerate using an occasional windows port, but the Mac software creators don't have anything to worry about.

Good - for competition

[Dark Paladin]

I think this is a great thing. I know I have two major applications - Groove and Visio, both owned by Microsoft - that have no OS X support. Entourage supports Exchange, but not nearly as well as the original Windows MS Outlook.

This announcement means that Virtual PC has some real competition - rather than wasting my time booting up a virtual computer, I can just run the apps I need. Could this hurt OS X with Windows developers saying "Eh - just run Codeweaver and leave us alone?". Sure - but I think more people running OS X, even if they are running Wine-enabled applications, will still be better in the long run, since the "average user" won't understand why they're being told to spend another $50 to get a program to run on their Mac - they'll either go with a PC, or, if they've grown to love OS X, they'll tell the developer to convert.

We'll just have to see. Here's hoping Transgaming announces a similiar announcement, just for competitions sake. Like another poster, I'm also looking forward to Half Life 2 on my shiny Mactel box ;).