Why windows only applications?

[BigBear]

I have always known that not all applications are available on all operating systems.

Since I am a windows user I see more applications that are not available for mac or are in an older version.

So no one uses the windows api active X. So unless they are using a windows dependent library or the .net framework why isn't there a mac version.

Since you could just use a mac compiler with the same code.

So why do different operating systems have different versions or even a version at all.

[Insectoid]

A lot of programs do have mac versions since macs started running Intel processors. However, there's a lot more to it than just using a different compiler. Any game written in DirectX has to be redone in OpenGL since directX is windows-only. Similarly, macs and linux have no registry. There are a lot of small things that'd have to change in order to have cross-platform programs. It isn't worth most developers' time, since 99% of their potential users are running Windows.

[Tony]

Mac users are also accustomed to a higher quality of apps in terms of quality and design. Any GUI would have to be redone in Cocoa, to get the native feel for the application. Direct ports, even when possible, just wouldn't be well received.

[BigBear]

So for Skype for mac they would already have the GUI and use of data files but have not updated it.

[Euphoracle]

That sentence wasn't coherent. Although the mac gui for Skype is better than the windows one, it is far from perfect.

[BigBear]

What would be some reasons that an application is in an older version on mac than windows. Such as skype.

[Tony]

Separate development branches. If the development is done for Windows first, then it takes time for the changes to be merged into the other branches. Imbalances in engineering efforts (for example, if there are less OSX developers and some suddenly leave the company or are assigned to a different task) can further increase the version gap.

[BigBear]

So you would be using the same code?

Just replacing the GUI?

[DtY]

BigBear @ Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:38 pm wrote:

So you would be using the same code?

Just replacing the GUI?

Any platform specific code/libraries, the most common of which is the GUI.

There are cross platform guis though, wxWidgets, for example, abstracts the system default GUI (windows, cocoa, gtk, qt and probably more) and can make GUIs that look right on any platform. Audacity uses it. If you use it on Windows, it will look like a Windows program, and if you use it on Mac OS it will look like a cocoa application.

e; Skype might be using any number of platform specific libraries, for example, networking, sound, GUI. There are libraries that abstract these so you can use them on multiple platforms, but they may be lacking (just because abstracting takes the lowest feature available to all supported platforms).

It's even possible they aren't even based on common code. The most infamous example of this is Internet Explorer 5 for Mac OS. It came out around the same time as IE5 for Windows, but it sucked a lot more than IE5 for Windows (it has countless rendering issues that IE5 for Windows never had).

[BigBear]

Why would M$ make a mac version of ie?

It definitely would not be pre-installed, seems like no one would ever use it.

[Euphoracle]

They did because they were in an agreement with Apple to do so. People did use it when it was the only browser but now Safari is used by default and ie for mac is no longer in development.

[BigBear]

What about Netscape navigator?

[andrew.]

Actually, I think Apple and MS had an agreement. IE was installed on every Mac by default a little while back.

[yoursecretninja]

Quote:

IE was installed on every Mac by default a little while back.

More than a little while back. The last release of IE for Mac (IE 5) was in 2003... the same year Safari was released.

[DtY]

BigBear @ Sun Sep 05, 2010 8:54 pm wrote:

What about Netscape navigator?

People used it for the same reason they did on Windows, it's the browser that came on the computer.