I like the way how you have said that "Okamoto said that WWDC will focus on three areas: Mac OS X 10.5, or "Leopard," Immersion Monday and Conent Media. Immersion Monday, which is part of the Mac OS X Essentials track (there are five others), will expose non-Mac developers to Apple operating systems and development tools."
They or you have not said anything at all about the debarkle that is Mac OS 10.4.9 !!
The poor old Mac users are BIG trouble with this update indeed !
So which is better Mac or PC ?, well finally Mac users know now that their OS is not so infalable after all !!

First off: Neil... Wtf? So an update has bugs, wouldn't be the first time, and it's not like Apple would be alone in that. And they *do* still manage to get fixes and updates out faster than MS in general after all. Get off your own high horse, you come across like a major wanker with too much time on his hands. And try using a spell checker next time. Even better, let there not *be* a next time.

Back on topic, it'll be great to see what's new in Leopard from a developer perspective, especially with Objective C 2.0 and a stack of new stuff like Core Animation making things easier - from all reports so far there's never been a better time to become a Mac OS developer! :-)

It will be interesting when/if Apple releases a .NET runtime for the Mac. If they did such a thing, all of us .NET developers could have our apps run on both platforms. Mac would REALLY give Microsoft a run for their money. I'm a diehard fan of Microsoft but after I've used Vista for a few months here I'm ready to switch. I never thought I'd say this.

It'll take a whole lot more than a few "talks" for me to be remotely intrested in developing for Mac. It is NOT in the enterprise, so until that happens, it's all TALK. The .Net Framework has afforded me a good living and I don't see any money in my furture on the Mac.

I like my Macs for web browsing, music, and all that, but after giving it a try decided I'm not gonna develop specifically for them. I find Xcode and Objective-C painful and Cocoa too platform specific.

Fortunately, it's possible to develop stuff that runs on Mac without ever learning anything about Mac-specific technologies, using Java, wxWidgets, and Gtk+.

There's (most of) .NET 2.0 right now, and 3.0 is coming...but not from either MS or Apple.

http://www.mono-project.com/

The beauty of it is, you get to program with decent languages (C#/C++/Python/whatever works for you) and it Just Works Everywhere. I just finished a project for a good-sized financial-services firm; developed on one platform, deployed on two others without a hitch. I have yet to see (in over 15 years of cross-platform development) a "native" framework or toolchain that was that reliable. (and no, Java isn't "native", and it certainly hasn't always been "reliable" - or its practitioners haven't, anyway).

So many consumers are Switching to Mac, why not start focusing on Developers? Unless they have had their heads in the sand for the last couple of years they have got to be aware of the vast migration to Apple...

http://www.switchingtomac.com/

All these ideas sound nifty for some board ITer who wants a new toy to play with but what about the bottom line?

First, Apple needs to exponentially increase their potential market share. That amounts to loosening up control over the hardware platform and generating some buzz with consumers. That means creating a competitive gaming platform. Apple still lives in the 80's where they can't live on anything less than 20% profit margins.

Most developers won't touch the Mac if there's even an inkling of possibility that they'll have to write two applications, one for the PC and one for the Mac. Nobody but Apple can make it worth their while to do so.

Apple needs a higher level language than Objective-C. If you look at the Windows platform, C/C++ programmer are one of the smaller groups. If Apple is only targeting those developers then they are missing the vast majority.

I agree that .Net/Mono on Mac would be good. Still, it would be nice to have a native-code, higher-level language for Mac.

Didn't they used to do Pascal? They could buy Objective-Basic and get all those VB6/VB.Net developers to switch.

Remember, Windows never really took off in the corporate world until there was a language, higher level than C, with which to write custom applications. When VB for Windows came out, and particularly VB3 when database support arrived, Windows popularity in the workplace exploded.

Mac needs the same thing.

Developers to Apple: Get a platform

I just got back from a Java development show. Of 50 laptops I saw, 40 of them were Macs. Two years ago it was the other way around. Of 15 presenters, all but 3 had Macs. These were leaders in the Java field. Architects and book authors -- all thrilled to be able to run Mac and Windows apps side by side.

Why is it that whenever there is an article or new software launch that mentions Macs there seems to be an endless debate over which is better: Macs or PCs?

Ok, we're all well aware that the Microsoft market share is so big that it would take a cataclismic event for Apple to gain a large market share

However, Macs have their pros, as well as cons, as well do PCs

I for one use a Mac at home but use a PC at work

I think it's high time that users of each of the platforms finally realised that it doesn't really matter which platform you use or how you choose to use it. As long as that platform is suitable for your needs as a user then that great - if it's not then find another one!

There are other alternatives to Mac OS as well as Windows (a miriad of Linux distributions to begin with) and everyone has the freedom to choose

Let's all find something a little bit more important to argue about rather than which OS is best ;-)

it will be a cold night in hell before i switch to MAC

As a Mac user who makes his living as a .Net developer I'd certainly like to see .Net (real .Net - not Mono, which trails too far behind) running on OS X. I'm not holding my breath waiting for it, but I'd still like to see it.

I agree that the whole Objective C thing is a bit too low-level relative to what we're used to these days. Xcode is really slick, but devs still have to deal with pointers and database support is weak. I cut my teeth in C, and while I retain a fondness for it, I don't want to write real-world apps in C anymore. A higher-level abstraction to Objective C would be most welcome (esp. if it were C# :-).

...and can't there ever be one thread of discussion along these lines in which someone doesn't bring up Linux?... Oy!

"demand tends"? what are you talking about? what's the percentage of jobs and contracts for MAC development? is there any incentive for me to change ? I don't think so.

As a cocoa developer on the Mac I feel I need to address some points in the comments:

Brian: while having a .Net runtime on the Mac would be nice, trying to sell .Net applications that have been coded for Windows primarily will be hard work, and such applications would most likely get slaughtered by their Cocoa counterparts. The reason is simple, you cannot design an application that works well on more than one platform

Marlon Smith: You'd be surprised. There are many small development companies of 1-5 developers who are earning quite a good living off Mac software. And many of these have more than one product. In terms of enterprise software, no, there isn't a huge demand, but in terms of software for consumers, creative professionals and small businesses, there is quite a large demand.

Mike Johnson: As I said to Brian, cross platform applications just don't work. An application written with frameworks built into the system will provide a far better experience than one using cross platform APIs. Just compare any pure Java application on a Mac to a similar Cocoa application to see what I mean.

Greg: I'm sure Apple is trying to attract a lot of developers to the Mac to become like the Mac developers currently out there. On Windows the concept of shareware is often laughed at as being poor quality software being sold on the cheap. On the Mac shareware is the main business model. And despite what people think, it is very possible to make money on the Mac. The Mac makes it easier for a small developer to come up with a new application and sell it. As for the profits, yes Apple does have large profit margins. However, by having these huge profit margins it is able to earn more profit than companies like Dell and HP (combined) who have 55% of the market between them.

MrDiscount: Objective-C isn't quite as low level as you may think. Most Objective-C code that is written uses the Cocoa frameworks. These frameworks give you all the abstractions and such you gain from higher level languages. As such, by using Cocoa I can compile for two architectures with one code base. As for the Mac needing something like VB, I'd be inclined to disagree. Anyone who's done any serious coding in a major language will tell you that VB is itself a terrible language, only popular due to it being easy to learn.

Mark: What sorts of higher level abstraction would you be looking for in Objective-C. As I've pointed out before, Cocoa provides much of the abstraction you need, it needs to given that OS X runs on 4 (possibly 5 with the iPhone) architectures. As for higher level languages, Leopard is bringing both Ruby and Python bridges to Cocoa. While these have been available for a while (the Python bridge has been available since around 1994/5) they are now being officially included.

Martin Pilkington

Thank you for the feedback.

I know there have always been stories out there about VB being a bad language; usually from people who have never used it professionally other than for building prototypes. Having said that, it is also true that VB makes it very easy for bad programmers to build bad software. This could certainly be viewed as a weekness by people used to more structured, rigorous languages.

VB, however, was used in the vast majority of vertical market software products. It's database accessibility was strong. If you look at the latest generation of VB clones (Objective-Basic, RealBasic) you will find a rich object oriented language with true inheritance.

The only reason I bring this up is that Mac needs something to create a large pool, and new generation of, Mac programmers. Languages like VB are great for business apps, database apps, etc. Now, GUI business apps are being overshadowed by web apps these days but you still find them out there.

Will these newer VB clones still allow bad programmers to write bad software? Sure. So will PHP, PERL, and all the latest scripting languages out there. I think if people look at what was really done with VB on Windows (I've seen real-time broadcast systems writen in VB that functioned flawlessly for years at a time) they will see that having a tool like this for Mac could really generate even more momentum for the platform.

But if you like "}" instead of "End If" statements, then there will be no convincing you.

:)

The Mac is the ultimate development platform:

1. Run, and develop on and for Mac OS X
2. Run, and develop on and for Windows XP and Windows Vista
3. Run, and develop on and for whatever Linux distro you desire
4. Develop for Java
5. Develop for Web (Ruby, Rails, Perl, PHP, Python, etc., etc.)

I'm not in the least bit surprised the alpha geeks are switching to the Mac in droves.

Next comes consumers (that's already happening, really), and then small businesses, then big businesses.

The Mac, thanks in large part to OS X, Apple's embrace of open-source, and the switch to the Intel architecture, is once more a force to contend with.

Kudos to Apple for their turnaround.

The Mac is the ultimate development platform:

1. Run, and develop on and for Mac OS X
2. Run, and develop on and for Windows XP and Windows Vista
3. Run, and develop on and for whatever Linux distro you desire
4. Develop for Java
5. Develop for Web (Ruby, Rails, Perl, PHP, Python, etc., etc.)

I'm not in the least bit surprised the alpha geeks are switching to the Mac in droves.

Next comes consumers (that's already happening, really), and then small businesses, then big businesses.

The Mac, thanks in large part to OS X, Apple's embrace of open-source, and the switch to the Intel architecture, is once more a force to contend with.

Kudos to Apple for their turnaround.

The Mac is the ultimate development platform:

1. Run, and develop on and for Mac OS X
2. Run, and develop on and for Windows XP and Windows Vista
3. Run, and develop on and for whatever Linux distro you desire
4. Develop for Java
5. Develop for Web (Ruby, Rails, Perl, PHP, Python, etc., etc.)

I'm not in the least bit surprised the alpha geeks are switching to the Mac in droves.

Next comes consumers (that's already happening, really), and then small businesses, then big businesses.

The Mac, thanks in large part to OS X, Apple's embrace of open-source, and the switch to the Intel architecture, is once more a force to contend with.

Kudos to Apple for their turnaround.

Sorry for the multiple identical posts, folks.

That was bizarre.

"The Mac is the ultimate development platform"

It is the ultimate development platform but doesn't have .net, the development choice of the business world? The framework that runs on ~85% of pcs?

"I'm not in the least bit surprised the alpha geeks are switching to the Mac in droves."

I guess I must be a beta geek then. Pity, I spose don't get to spend $1200 for a laptop that I can't customize so I can design a program in an inferior language for a fraction of 5% of the market, along with an even smaller share of European users, and virtually no Asian users. I also won't be able to work with a computer group that has a grossly disproportionate amount of pretentious pricks. A true shame indeed.

"Develop for Java"

I didn't care for your arguments but I do appreciate your sense of humor.

Brian:

Why pollute a Mac with .NET? Really, take the short leap to learn Objective-C and the NS foundation and junk the .NET think. I haven't done any WebObjects yet, but I'm in the release stages of my first Objective-C app and it has been a real learning experience. After floundering with an initial implementation in C++, an experienced NeXT/Obj-C developer jumped in to help me learn Obj-C and come up to speed on the foundation library and Xcode. We spent about 3 days rewriting my 2 months work in C++ into Obj-C, and since then have progressed from client and server barely connecting to each to Alpha code in a couple of weeks.

My experienced friend wrote the "Preferences" app for this service in 12 hours of work. Today we're doing our alpha-release testing and building an installer package, and will release it to the customer in about 3 hours.

You just won't believe how good the development environment is until you throw yourself into a project and knock it out, then you (like me) will be kicking yourself for not buying a NeXTstation way back when...

"Why pollute a Mac with .NET?"

Oh pray tell, what is the Mac equivalent of Visual Studio?

If you understand numbers and economics then Mac is not the ultimate platform. But please stay in your Mac world, people like you that stick with Mac help make it a better alternative that the rest of us can use as a bargaining chip when purchasing software from Microsoft. Thanks.