Crossplatforming in Leopard?

destyrabbs23destyrabbs23
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Now I'm sure that most of you have heard that theory that took its rounds a month or 2 back about how Apple was going to drop OS X for Windows (centered around the switch to Intel). Now to anyone with any sense about them would dismiss this idea in the blink of an eye. But recently I heard something about how Apple might try and make all Windows applications compatible with OS X. Now this could be good or bad:

- Good:

-Compatability issues are solved

-Apple can start to show its true potential right up against Windows

-Increased Market share

- Bad:

-Opens up OS X to the same security threats as a Windows based computer

-The OS's optimization for all Apple authorized products would be lost(?)



So what do all of you think? Good Idea or Bad?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Supporting virtualization could permit Mac OS X to run on generic PCs just as it would enable other OSes to run under OS X. However, I'd love to see the Cocoa APIs enabled on Windows so our write/compile-once apps can then run on Mac or Windows natively. This would also encourage developers to switch to XCode on Mac OS X because not only are the APIs good but they can target all OSes. I'd hope Coca runtime for Linux would be available too.



    The only downside is that this makes versioning kinda tricky. Its easy to say you need version 10.X.X of Mac OS, but how do you refer the runtime version on Windows? That's the beginning of a giant mess to me. Which brings us back to running OS X as virtual semi-OS.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Xool

    Supporting virtualization could permit Mac OS X to run on generic PCs just as it would enable other OSes to run under OS X.



    Er... no.



    Virtualization does nothing for porting the host OS (MacOS X) to other hardware. Quite the opposite. It means that if you want to buy a box that can simul-boot MacOS X and Windows, then you need to either have a) a MacOS X box that has a virtualization layer that supports Windows, or b) a Windows box that has a virtualization layer that supports MacOS X. Either is *possible*, but they are two different tasks. a) is already done for most virtualization layers, while b) isn't even on the radar yet. So for at least the short term, someone who wants a box to run both is going to be looking at buying Apple hardware.



    Quote:

    However, I'd love to see the Cocoa APIs enabled on Windows so our write/compile-once apps can then run on Mac or Windows natively. This would also encourage developers to switch to XCode on Mac OS X because not only are the APIs good but they can target all OSes. I'd hope Coca runtime for Linux would be available too.



    TOTALLY different issue than virtualization.



    Quote:

    The only downside is that this makes versioning kinda tricky. Its easy to say you need version 10.X.X of Mac OS, but how do you refer the runtime version on Windows? That's the beginning of a giant mess to me. Which brings us back to running OS X as virtual semi-OS.



    Not any different than versioning of QuickTime, really. "You need version X of package Foo to run this app." is all it boils down to.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    Theoretically (and practically, at least wrt to XP) Xen makes it possible to run *any* OS with about 70-80% native speed. This is mostly for closed-source OSes, like XP or the higher levels of OS X. Because they cannot have the source code necessary to port the OS to run at near-native speed, they use paravirtualization to run unmodified guest OSes such as Win2000 or XP (and presumably, OS X) using Intel's VT-x, which in itself uses hardware virtualization.



    So no, XEN (or other virtual machine monitors) will not make it possible to run OS X on generic PCs, at least not in terms of near-native speed and not until all those PCs (or a majority of them) have hardware virtualization technology, which will take a while to become standard on all configurations out there.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Xool

    Supporting virtualization could permit Mac OS X to run on generic PCs just as it would enable other OSes to run under OS X. However, I'd love to see the Cocoa APIs enabled on Windows so our write/compile-once apps can then run on Mac or Windows natively. This would also encourage developers to switch to XCode on Mac OS X because not only are the APIs good but they can target all OSes. I'd hope Coca runtime for Linux would be available too.



    The only downside is that this makes versioning kinda tricky. Its easy to say you need version 10.X.X of Mac OS, but how do you refer the runtime version on Windows? That's the beginning of a giant mess to me. Which brings us back to running OS X as virtual semi-OS.



    I think the point is to have Cocoa OS X applications that are equivalent to their Windows counterparts be best of breed and convince people that their business and consumer needs are better served with these applications on OS X.
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