[MacDV] Re: The 20inch LCD Conspiracy

[Michael Winter]

On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 02:18  AM, SLarsonIH at aol.com wrote:

I should probably just stay out of this, but...

> What I DON"T like are the ways in which they are penalizing those of 
> us who
> choose to not move to OSX at this time. I for one, cannot afford to 
> buy a
> whole new system, with new peripherals and software. There is no 
> reason they
> can't sell a version of iDVD for $100 that will let me burn DVD's on 
> my 8600
> in OS9.

There are reasons iDVD won't run in OS9 on an 8600.

First, iDVD needs a G4. Even if you've upgraded your system to a G4, 
there's no way Apple can be expected to officially support every 
upgrade 3rd parties may make available for older hardware.

Second, OS X has many frameworks and API's that are not available in OS 
9. Does anyone really expect Apple to port Aqua/Quartz to OS 9 in order 
to make new software run in 9? The simple fact is that OS X supports 
many functions/features not found in OS 9, and some of them are not 
even possible to do in OS 9. Even features that are possible to 
implement in OS 9 would require more effort and troubleshooting (and be 
more bug prone) than the equivalent in X.

Apple had to make a choice between a less functional, harder to 
maintain and upgrade iDVD that runs in both 9 and X, or a more 
functional version, leveraging the power and features of OS X that will 
be easier to maintain and upgrade. IMO they made the right choice.

> There is no reason they can't have a very small team doing some 
> support.

It may take a bigger team to support iApps in OS 9 than OS X.

> Don't you think they could SELL some of the iApps, if they made them 
> for OS9?

Maybe. But as I said before, if they need to use OS X only frameworks 
and API just to get the software to work, OS 9 support may simply not 
be possible. The versions of iApps that currently run in OS 9 may be as 
feature complete as they can be without porting parts of OS X into OS 9 
in some way (if that's even possible). Keep in mind that any 
application written using Cocoa frameworks can't just be ported to OS 
9. You would essentially have to port Cocoa functionality as well.

> I think they could. Shoot, they have a whole team working on OSX on 
> Intel
> machines, that obviously isn't making them any money.

Of course OS X was running on Intel hardware before it was running on 
Apple hardware. In the early days, if you wanted to program for OS X, 
you did it on Intel hardware because that's the only place Apple's 
(NeXT's) development tools would run. IOW, the core of OS X and the 
basic frameworks have been working on Intel hardware for a long time. 
Making those services (essentially Cocoa frameworks) available to OS 9 
would be a nightmare if not impossible. Porting OS X to different 
hardware is relatively easy, porting OS X functionality to a different 
OS is essentially impossible.

Many of the other "Apple Conspiracy" stuff I've seen (including the 
flap about the 20" LCD) in the end really boil down to engineering 
tradeoffs and not being able to do the impossible. Old and new hardware 
& software doesn't always mix. Though it may be painful at times, its 
not a conspiracy.

-Mike