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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.'
If it can just run Windows apps anyway?
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
because people want native OS X programs. thus there is a market. thus profit.
anyway, i'm doubtful this will happen - as then apple would probably have to support it.
Cringely is out of his mind.
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.
The Wine guys worked a decade on cloning the Windows API, and there are still more than enough problems. There is no way Apple can do this. Maybe for specific applications, but implementing Win32 with all the required libraries on top? Never.
Cringely and Dvorak must be making humongous ad-revenue trolling Mac Fans lately. They're eating it up!
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.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Cool! All of the spyware and viruses can run in OS X too. That would be great.
Because Mac users will treat any Windows apps running on OS X like second class citizens. They'll stomach it, but not for long.
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.
1) There is no way in hell Microsoft would document their API to the level necessary to allow Apple to duplicate it.
And because of that, they're losing 2 million euros a-day...
...because Apple might just have their own implementation of a Windows API ready to go before Vista actually ever ships.
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.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
Then the users purchase a Mac, try OS X, realize they don't actually NEED Windows, and never use BootCamp at all.
:-)
Well they'll need it to boot Linux actually...
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Might I recommend the tag "plusfivefunny"
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.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Arguably some could call ReactOS a standalone OS version of WINE
A lot of comment so far correctly point out that WINE is is an implementation of the Windows API, but they miss Cringely's point that Apple licensed the Windows API. The whole shebang. So unlike the WINE development team, OSX-XP project team doesn't have to reverse engineer undocumented and cryptic API's. Anyone who remembers IBM's OS2 knows that IBM licensed the Windows API, and included it into OS2, and could run all Windows programs. OS2 failed because of lack of consumer appeal (eye-candy), not because of lack of compatibility.
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.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
What's wrong with not having programs written for OS X if it will be able to run the Windows apps anyway? Either way, people will buy macs and the mac marketshare will continue to increase. Eventually there are bound to be enough users to make having OS X versions of one's software (that can take full advantage of OS X's capabilities) advantageous enough to compel developers to make them in order to be competitive. Even if they don't, if MS does something with the next version to cause Windows compatibility to break, application developers will have to make Mac versions of their software in order to keep the customers happy. What's the big deal?
You'd never see another game port, and any app that wasn't really core-market kind of app for Apple would likely stop porting.
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.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It's a pretty dangerous move to incorporate old Windows APIs into their new system without the ability to update those APIs in the future. If Apple starts being able to run Windows apps in the next release, and then lose compatibility in the following releases, I could see people dumping Apple for loss of functionality. So even if Apple has access to XP APIs, it seems like too much of a risk on their part, especially since Microsoft is known to change APIs to break compatibility from their competitors.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
As a current OS/2 (and Mac OS X and Windows XP and Fedora and Ubuntu) user I think that people overplay the OS/2 card. There are at least two important ways that OS X is different from OS/2 in this argument.
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.
Not to mention all the great spyware and malware that supporting ActiveX and the rest of the Windows API will bring! Oh, yes, Nirvana.
Currently hooked on AMP
f Apple starts being able to run Windows apps in the next release, and then lose compatibility in the following releases, I could see people dumping Apple for loss of functionality. Well that's what boot camp is for...Apple tells people hey lookie, OS X will run all Mac OS apps and Win XP apps. If you cant get by with that and you absolutely, positively have to run the latest and greatest Windows release (i.e. vista), then reboot the computer into vista (of course you have to buy vista CD's). for 99% of users this is a pretty good deal and trade off
Wow, he got all that from Apple release of Boot Camp. His article me of another contemporary article of a man who traded up to apartment from a red paper-clip. I just thought the release was becasue Apple wanted to sell more Macs and sales are down due to the transition. Whether via virtualization or Apple directly using Windows API, Windows program will run on top of Mac OSX in the future. The question with virtualization is speed and direct access to hardware. Alternatively, using Windows API raises the question of appearance and consistency of interface. Apple's interface is not exactly like Windows. Menus are different and located in different places. Borders are also very different. In addition, keyboard combinations will be different. For example, the difference between using alt-f4 versus Command-Q. So, Windows programs are just going to bring in inconsistency to Mac OSX that Apple goes through great pains to avoid. It will screw up people who have become accustomed to certain way thing work in Mac OS X and mess up their work flows. One other problem is it will discourage developer from Mac OSX native programs. I am sure Apple doesn't wants that.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Isn't that what Ruby on Rails is for?
http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/CRUD
trichard
It would be much easier for Apple to move in that direction by implementing their own version of the Microsoft .NET CLR. This is a 'public' set of interfaces that is now being implemented in Rotor 2.0. None of the ISVs I work with today are developing anything but .NET code for the Microsoft platform. Sure - there is a great deal of interop remaining for COM+ and Win32 - but most companies have realized the ROI of moving to a managed environment like Java or .NET, and don't want to go back to the bad ole days of C coding.
Having .NET on the Apple could actually go a long way to bringing MACs into corporate environments, as companies would demand 'portable' .NET code.
No dispute regarding the feasability and cost of Apple's implementation of the API, but strategically, think about the timing of this: if you assume that the goal of this is a market-share grab by Apple, the best time to capture the consumer is at the upgrade cycle from XP to Vista.
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.
You may recognize that porting Win32 is far from enough to have modern and future Windows apps running on OSX. They'll have to port DirectX, .NET, Avalon, Indigo, in the near future WinFS and more like those.
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.
- Windows 3.0 - compatible with MSDOS (earlier versions had some compatability too but it wasn't as solid
- Windows 95 - compatible with Windows 3.x and DOS
- Windows XP - compatible with Windows 95, 3.x, and DOS
- Mac OS X - compatible with Mac OS 9. Also able to run many X11/Unix apps with just a recompile
Other people can probably come up with other examples of operating systems that, in their time, were successful, and had substantial back-compatibility with platforms that you generally wanted to obsolete, not support.Anyone thinking "Hey, Windows is Windows right?" should note that Windows 3.x and Windows 95 couldn't have had more different looks and feels, and their APIs were only superficially similar. Win32, 95's base API, was 32-bit, worked with flat, 32 bit, addressing, and provided access to something resembling a sane file system. "Win16", the pseudonym of the Windows 1/2/3.x APIs, by comparison required programs be written to use segmented memory. Filenames were UPPERCASE and had eight characters, a period, and three more after that. The GUIs were marginally similar in terms of widget layout, indeed a Win16 application was grating when you saw it up against native 32 bit applications.
The real question is: Is Apple prepared to get this operating system out to the mass market, should they consider including Red Box in Leopard? If they don't, then with a 3-5% marketshare, there's a serious risk that programmers will rely upon Red Box to get their critical, we're-the-only-people-who-do-this, applications to OS X users, and not care too much about complaints from Mac OS X users about the ugliness of the GUIs. Native Mac programs will still exist, especially if Apple re-releases an updated version of their OpenStep/WebObjects for Windows development tools, incorporating the software into Xcode. But they'll remain the minority, and the divide between Mac apps and Windows apps will, if anything intensify.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
The big thing about Crossover office is....Office. Apple already has office for OS X. Look at the supported apps page http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/suppo rted_apps/ 50 whole apps are supported. Many of them only work partially. You know what? Most of those already have versions for OS X that work 100%. Photoshop. itunes, Quicken, Notes, etc the list goes on. Maybe there is some special win32 only app that would really help if it was ported to OS X, but going by that list I just don't see it.
.005% of Windows apps. In fact they are falling behind. How does that possibly help Apple? It doesn't.
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.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If Apple were to make it possible to port a WIN32 app to OS/X using winelib or something else, but providing hooks to allow the resulting app to have a native look and feel (if the developer were willing to exploit those hooks), then it could be a win-win.
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'.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I'm not a typical Mac user either (got an iBook as a Unixy laptop) but since I started looking at the Mac groups I was surprised at the amount of bitching there was against applications like (for example) Firefox which seemingly don't look right.
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 !"
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