2 comments: Running Safari on Win 2000 so take the XP requirement with a grain of salt.
Also, looks good so far (better than on my mac at home), and although I have not slammed it yet, it does seem pretty snappy.
As to why Apple would do this: easy - iPhone. 3rd party iPhone apps need to be written against Safari/webKit. Have to give the windows developers a version of safari to use. In the end it probably was not that hard since the webkit portion of safari was already part of iTunes.
Kinda cool. The Apple Collective. Prepare to be assimilated.
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
These kinds of tech agreements usually give each party not just access to the docs, but the right to use the source code. Apple probably had to do very little to get it running since they just grab M$ source...no need to re-invent the wheel
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.
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2 comments: Running Safari on Win 2000 so take the XP requirement with a grain of salt. Also, looks good so far (better than on my mac at home), and although I have not slammed it yet, it does seem pretty snappy. As to why Apple would do this: easy - iPhone. 3rd party iPhone apps need to be written against Safari/webKit. Have to give the windows developers a version of safari to use. In the end it probably was not that hard since the webkit portion of safari was already part of iTunes. Kinda cool. The Apple Collective. Prepare to be assimilated.
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
These kinds of tech agreements usually give each party not just access to the docs, but the right to use the source code. Apple probably had to do very little to get it running since they just grab M$ source...no need to re-invent the wheel
Read the article...Apple need not duplicate, its got the right to use the source code from M$