Run Windows Applications Natively in OS X?

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.'

Comments

Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS

[otis wildflower]

Ideally this would be in a sandbox, similar to a virtual machine.

Unnecessary.. Apple could implement the Win32 code (or better yet simply use the API as a Carbon-style interface to OS X) and avoid MS bugs by avoiding MS code.

MS exploits come from (in the overwhelming main) either VB/VBA scripting shenanigans or poorly-coded OS components. With Apple smart enough not to reimplement VB/VBA retardation in its software, and with the components actually being OS X with just an API interface layer ala WINE, as long as Apple decides not to be virus-feature-complete they should not be susceptible to Windows-specific virus code.

Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS

[spongebill]

because a native mac os x app cocoa or carbon app will run at NORMAL speed where a VM windows app will run NOTICEABLY SLOWER! DUH!

Re:That would actually be the major reason not to

[IntlHarvester]

The "Mac community" you mention -- at least the hardcore types you'll find online -- probably want to attack the issue from both sides by increasing both the number of users and the number of programs available.

I think if we were to generalize the Mac Community's attitude it would be "Why don't all those idiots wake up and buy a Mac tomorrow!!!"

But Apple is a lot wiser than their fans. They seem to understand how purely fundemental the Windows-lockin is, and how their 2% marketshare is not simply a cost/hardware problem. Somewhere I read that there's over 1 Million commercial Windows programs (most vertical market). How many have been ported to the Mac? 12? How many will EVER be ported to the Mac?

That Apple simply can't compete on merits alone is the main reason they keep jamming up margins (now to 30%!) to extact their pound-of-flesh from the Different-Thinking Mac loyalists.

So the trick for Apple is to increase sales while still maintaining record profitability. I think Cringley is full of it here, but I'm also sure that Apple will "embrace" Windows somehow, in order to change the rules and break Macs out of their segement. (Probably with Bootcamp and Vista Preinstalled on Macs.)