Run Windows Applications Natively in OS X?

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Run Windows Applications Natively in OS X?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Friday April 21, 2006 @05:45AM from the predictiontastic dept.

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.'

13 of 521 comments (clear)

Uhhh... hello. by jonnythan · 2006-04-21 05:48 · Score: 5, Informative

Wow, Cringely obviously has a clue.

"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."

Wine *is* an implementation of the Windows API.

Cringeworthy is more like it
As usual.... by wiggles · 2006-04-21 05:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
1. Re:As usual.... by wulfhound · 2006-04-21 06:04 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The problem is not whether or not it's possible, but whether it's feasible for a development team to do it well enough (for Mac users, who expect much higher standards of such things than Linux users) and in a short enough time frame.
  
  Personally I think it's doubtful for that reason.
Moderation by palad1 · 2006-04-21 05:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Damn, I whish I could mod this story +5, Funny
YHBT! by NutscrapeSucks · 2006-04-21 05:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
1. Re:YHBT! by Ohreally_factor · 2006-04-21 06:23 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It is indeed an interesting time to be a Mac user.
  
  keep in mind he probably wrote this column in 15 minutes while high on cough medicine.
  
  Actually, he was only able to put down on paper the fantastic visions conjured by his drugged out mind for fifteen minutes before he was interrupted by a person from Porlock. When he was finally able to get back to writing his article, he found that the vivid images had left him, and he was left with only a few fragmentary notes.
  
  In Cupertino did Kubla Khan[1]
  A stately pleasure-dome decree[2] :
  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran[3]
  Through caverns measureless to man[4]
  Down to a sunless sea.[5]
  
  [1] Clearly a reference to Steve Jobs
  [2] Jobs announces expansion of Apple campus
  [3] River Alph = 1 Infinite Loop(?)
  [4]Undocumented Windows APIs
  [5]Apparently where WinFS is hiding
  
  --
  It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS by Anonymous Coward · 2006-04-21 05:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Cool! All of the spyware and viruses can run in OS X too. That would be great.
Re:What's the incentive to write a program for OS by non0score · 2006-04-21 05:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

By your reasoning, then why bother writing OSX programs in the first place? The point is that people write programs for OSX because they want to, not because they're somehow stuck with a Mac and can't write something for the PC. This is giving people who use program Y that was never "ported" to the Mac platform (and thus can't switch over) a reason to switch over. Of course, this is also giving a lot of convenience to long-time Mac users who just can't seem to get any games.

Now, only if I can plug in any PCIE gfx card and be able to get the OSX drivers for them, I'll be all set....
Re:tap, tap, tap, .. there's no place like OS X... by Ford+Prefect · 2006-04-21 06:01 · Score: 5, Funny

He expects Apples magical engineers to just whip out a feature complete copy of the Windows API in just a few months?

Give me a load of All-Bran or other fibre-rich foodstuffs to work on, and I'm sure I could produce a feature-complete copy of Microsoft Windows in 24 hours or so. Even less, if laxatives are involved.

--
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Read the &*^%$*&%$ Article by dham340 · 2006-04-21 06:02 · Score: 5, Informative

For all those who have not read the article and have thrown out issues with apple maintaining and/or duplicating the Windows API:
Remember Steve Jobs' first days back at Apple in 1997 as Interim-CEO-for-Life? Trying to save the company, Steve got Bill Gates to invest $150 million in Apple and promise to keep Mac Office going for a few more years in exchange for a five-year patent cross-licensing agreement? The idea in everyone's mind, of course, was that Microsoft would grab lots of Apple technology, which they probably did, and it quite specifically ended an Apple patent infringement suit against Microsoft. But I'm told that the exchange wasn't totally one-way, that Apple, in turn, got some legal right to the Windows API. That agreement ran for five years, from August, 1997 to August 2002. Even though it has since expired, the rights it conferred at the time still lie with the respective companies. Whatever Microsoft grabbed from Apple they can still use, they just aren't able to grab anything developed since August 2002. Same for Apple using Microsoft technology like that in Office X. But Windows XP shipped October 25, 2001: 10 months before the agreement expired. I'm told Apple has long had this running in the Cupertino lab -- Intel Macs running OS X while mixing Apple and XP applications. This is not a guess or a rumor, this something that has been demonstrated and observed by people who have since reported to me.
If true, then Apple has a *legal right* equivelent to that of an owner to use the Windows API. Yes, M$ can change it, but it would have to be prospectively.
That would actually be the major reason not to by Sycraft-fu · 2006-04-21 06:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

IBM had that problem with OS/2. It ran Windows apps just fine, there were very few that didn't work jsut as intended... Which lead to nobody making native OS/2 apps. I mean if you can write it once and it'll run on both OSes, why bother with a port? Sure it would work BETTER if it was a native app, but it worked well enough.

I think Apple would face a similar problem. Not all apps would stop porting, of course, apps that have a healthy market like Photoshop would keep porting, but I think many would. 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. You have to figure you aren't really going to lose any sales since it does run, and there are few people using it in the first place, so why bother?

Now maybe Apple decides they don't care. Maybe they want to implement the Windows APIs and just use those. Maybe they figure the other features of the OS are enough to keep epopel buying. However I gaurentee they are smart enough to know that if they implement the Windows API natively in OS-X, that most apps will just use that and not bother to port.
Wine vs Windows API by dokebi · 2006-04-21 06:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

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*!
Re:Safe Browsing by Anonymous Coward · 2006-04-21 07:19 · Score: 5, Funny

Your third point is redundant (see second point).