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Apple's Windows Apps Not Ready For Vista

narramissic writes "A new Apple technical support document confirms that none of the company's Windows Applications are compatible with Vista. Affected applications include: 'QuickTime, the iPod shuffle reset utility, Bonjour for Windows, AirPort for Windows, the iDisk utility, AppleWorks for Windows, and Apple Software Update for Windows. The stand-alone iPod updater for iTunes 6 for Windows also isn't ready for Vista.'" The article refers to an Apple tech support document dated "today" (02/08) — without providing a link — but a search turns up only this one from 02/02.

21 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Not exactly accurate by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not "ready" or "supported" on Vista != "doesn't work on Vista" or "never will be supported on Vista"

    Also, what does "compatible with Vista" mean in this context to most users? If a product works just fine on Vista, what does something being not "compatible with Vista" mean to end users?

    That is, all of these pieces of software work fine, except iTunes, for which Apple has released a temporary fix until the next iTunes release, which will officially support Vista. The next QuickTime release will also officially support Vista, though the current release works fine.

    Yes, yes, they're not officially supported on Vista and that's a consideration, but this submission acts as if none of Apple's Windows apps even work on Vista, when actually they all do.

    Also, that isn't a "new" Apple technical support article. It's been around since at least November 2006, and simply enumerates the versions of Windows officially supported by Apple's various software products for Windows. Considering Apple has already stated that at least two products (iTunes and QuickTime) will officially support Vista in their next versions, and Apple has released a temporary fix for their only Windows product that has identified problems with Vista (iTunes), I fail to see how this is news.

    Should all of these applications have been qualified for Vista? Perhaps. But this is Apple we're talking about here, and meanwhile Microsoft has systematically killed off several major products on Mac OS X, even as Mac OS X's marketshare increases (Windows Media Player (Flip4Mac is neat, but is no substitute and also doesn't support Windows Media DRM), Virtual PC, VB in Office, Outlook, and so on).

    Apple's new Apple Software Update for Windows (which does work on Vista) will bring down new versions of itself, and every other applicable Apple product, in a seamless and automated fashion when they become available.

    Next? (Slow news day?)

    1. Re:Not exactly accurate by dedazo · · Score: 4, Informative
      This sounds a bit apologetic, but the bottom line is that Apple has had two years (at least) to get their shit together with widely available documentation and SDKs from Microsoft that many other software companies have happily used so far.

      Of course, as you say "not ready" doesn't mean "doesn't work", but I would expect Apple to *at least* get Quicktime to function correctly. If they're not interested, that's fine. It's not like Microsoft needs Apple software to work on Windows. It's the other way around at least for the time being.

      I have no idea what "has systematically killed products blah blah" has to do with anything. If Apple wants to systematically kill their apps on the Windows platform, I'd say that's fine. Quicktime has gotten better in the past few years but it's still buggy and brittle. At least it doesn't take over every media association in my computer and try to stick me with a non-removable tray icon anymore.

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    2. Re:Not exactly accurate by Nasarius · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, I'm talking about Visual Studio 2005, which gives you an enormous warning message when installing on Vista. There was no update when Vista was released to businesses, and now after it's available to everyone, the update is still in beta. It sort of invalidates GP's snide attitude about having "two years (at least) to get their shit together", when Microsoft still doesn't have its shit together.

      --
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    3. Re:Not exactly accurate by ergo98 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm failing to see your so-called point.

      Are you intentionally being dense?

      Visual Studio 2005 with SP1 is not currently considered compatible with Vista. There is a different patch called "SP1 for Vista" that is in beta, exactly as the GP stated several times.

      Microsoft has a number of products that have issues on Vista, so the whole "Get their shit together" thing seems a little ridiculous.
    4. Re:Not exactly accurate by Mr+44 · · Score: 2, Informative

      How is the parent comment in any way insightful? Vista RC1 was released 5 months ago, and there were very very few major changes from RC1 to RTM. And it would be one thing if thir software worked perfectly on Beta2 or RC1, but thats clearly not the case...

    5. Re:Not exactly accurate by Jim_Maryland · · Score: 3, Informative
      Check out ESRI's desktop products for support on Microsoft Vista. Apple is by no means the only company to not immediately support Microsoft's latest OS. Yes, releases have been available but that doesn't require the company to have an update immediately available. How long have some of the Apple products been out?

      Oh, I looked at some of the IBM Tivoli documents as well and when selecting the OS in the support section, they haven't updated to include MS Windows Vista yet. I also saw the following question in one of the Tivoli support questions:

      Problem
      Several customers have asked if TBSM has plans to support the soon to be released Vista Operating System.

      Solution
      Due to the upcoming TBSM 4.1 release, there are currently no plans for TBSM 3.1 to support/run on the Microsoft Vista O/S.



      From the BEA WebLogic site, neither their current release (9.2) or their preview release (10) are listed as supporting Vista. They only cover XP.

      From a quick check of the Oracle website, they didn't have support at Vista release as well. 32 bit support 1st quarter 2007, 64 bit sometime in the second half.

      Why bash Apple when they are not the only company that hasn't jumped at Microsoft's latest creation.
  2. Re:Repeat of DOS is not done? by Why2K · · Score: 5, Informative
    "DOS is not done, till DR-DOS wont run"

    That doesn't make any sense. The quote was "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run."

  3. Not all that surprising... by ivan256 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Since installing Vista ultimate, my experience has been that less than half of software I used on XP which hasn't been updated specifically for Vista doesn't work. Many won't even install. It's going to take some time for the support to be reasonable.

  4. Standard Operating Procedure by mpapet · · Score: 4, Informative

    In my experience, the devs didn't port anything to a brand-new OS release that wasn't their _core_ business until it was, for all practical purposes, released for sale.

    From a business perspective, there is little reason to rush to an OS that few people are using. Even if it's microsoft.

    Many consumer hardware/software vendors will have some kind of support for Vista by Q4. Apple included.

    --
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  5. Re:what a joke by evn · · Score: 4, Informative

    They did. All of Microsoft's Macintosh applications still runs in the Rosetta processor emulation environment. Macs with Intel processors have been shipping for more than a year and no fix is expected until the second half of this year. There wasn't a version of Microsoft Office that worked in OS X until after Apple had released 10.1 - before that it ran in the classic environment.

  6. Re:Didn't work six months ago by 0racle · · Score: 2, Informative

    Everyone, including Microsoft, has waited for Vista to be released retail before handling Vista incompatibilities. Of the big ones I know of, Visual Studio also does not officially have Vista Support, and Vista RTM warns you of this when you install it.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  7. Re:Not Ready by archen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not just applications, but hardware for that matter. I just found out that my HP5400 scanner won't work with Vista. HP says too bad, "consider buying a new product (from us)". It's sort of interesting that people criticize Linux for it's driver support as they're mostly written by someone other than the vendor, but windows depends on those vendors for drivers which means you're often SOL after a certain period of time.

  8. Really? by iceperson · · Score: 3, Informative

    Can you name a few apps? I'm running Vista here and everything I've thrown at it works (short of iTunes which still won't work using any of the suggestions from Apple.) A few things I'm using just fine here are Dreamweaver/Fireworks/Flash, Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, OOo, and quite a few legacy in house apps.

  9. Re:Apples Time by Nasarius · · Score: 3, Informative

    I would really like to use iTunes in Ubuntu
    Pfft. Amarok beats everything. The only things it can't do is update your iPod firmware and download stuff from iTMS.
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  10. AppleWorks for Windows? by lag10 · · Score: 1, Informative

    When was the last time Apple updated AppleWorks for OS X, let alone Windows? I didn't even know they still made it for Windows. I'd think that they would mainly focus on their own platform over another.

  11. All a Bunch of Crap by jerquiaga · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm using Vista Business and Vista Ultimate, and all of those products are working just fine for me. All of this hype over Vista breaking everything hasn't seemed to really pan out for me. The one program I haven't gotten to work is NetStumbler, and I have a feeling it's because MS changed the way drivers interact with the system, and NetStumbler doesn't like that. So, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I have three machines with three different sets of hardware and various apps, everything seems fine. Definitely not a large sample, but who knows. Everyone just calm down a bit.

  12. Oh noez! Omgz! Oh noes! by alisson · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you upgrade to vista before SP1, it's your own fault :)

  13. Re:Not Ready by Nasarius · · Score: 4, Informative
    Ha! I saw a few days ago that Logitech is doing the same thing:

    This Camera will not work with Windows Vista. Please see our list of newer Vista compatible cameras.
    Nice.
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  14. Re:bye bye /. by Canthros · · Score: 3, Informative

    Strange. I just dropped digg last week because, their write-ups were almost consistently asinine (and equally exaggerated), and their comments actually managed to be less informed and level-headed than the ones at Slashdot.

    Seriously, suit yourself and good luck to you, but I don't miss digg cluttering up my RSS reader much at all.

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    Canthros
  15. Re:Apples Time by jb.hl.com · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or copy album art to a 5G iPod, or not delete all the album art currently on your 5G iPod (at least with the latest firmware).

    Other than those, Amarok is just peachy :)

    --
    By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
  16. Re:iTunes isn't even supported on WinXP 64-bit by Yosho · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm guessing it's been a while since you've checked, because I'm running the very latest version of iTunes (7.0.2.16) on XP 64 with no problems.

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