Re: Universal Binaries, x86 and compatibility...
Re: Universal Binaries, x86 and compatibility...
- Subject: Re: Universal Binaries, x86 and compatibility...
- From: "Dennis C. De Mars" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 19:20:57 -0700
I have a couple of shareware programs, but I think I can wait until
the first commercial Intel platforms come out and start testing my
Intel binaries then. The cheapest (Mac Mini) is supposed to be one of
the first -- so much the better. I will simply buy one of these as
soon as I can.
The way I look at it is this: when they start selling these machines,
on day one the total share of installed PPC Macs will be 100% and the
total share of installed Intel Macs will be 0%. It will take a while
for the share of Intel Macs to ramp up. Of course, new computer
owners tend to be the biggest purchasers of software, so you don't
want to wait too long to get on board. But, I figure most Cocoa
programs are going to be pretty close and it might take a week or two
of tweaking at the most to get my applications in shape. Saving that
week or two is not nearly enough incentive for me to spend a thousand
dollars on hardware I have to give back anyway.
Now, for the big software vendors it is obviously worth it to be
ready; when all of those new Intel Mac owners show up with cash in
their fists looking for native code to run on their new machines, you
want to be there ready to accept their cash. However, most shareware
doesn't generate enough income to be significant during that initial
period, and anyway I think the window on buying $20 apps will be a
bit longer than the window for buying $200 apps.
I think most shareware authors are in the same boat. You may see a
few of the big ones, like Graphicconverter, are ready on day 1, but
I'll bet there will be a dearth of native Intel shareware programs
for the first few days, and then a flood.
In the meantime, look out for those endian issues and you should be
OK. Saving to file is a big focus, you have to do it in an endian-
independent way if the file is to be shared between Intel and PPC
machines. That's an area where you want to put your house in order
right away, you don't want your users to be saving files they can't
read when they get a new Intel machine.
- Dennis D.
On Jun 8, 2005, at 1:14 PM, Keith Blount wrote:
Hello,
I am hoping someone can put my mind at rest about the
whole x86/Universal Binaries issue. I am developing an
app that will either be freeware or shareware, and
thus cannot afford the Transition Kit. I'm only just
now trying to get my head around Core Data as I had to
wait for the official release of Tiger to afford that,
and when I finally got it I found that a lot of code I
had spent a long time over was now redundant (not just
data stuff - I spent weeks and weeks on implementing
variable row heights in tables and lists in text
views). I'm not complaining, but it was frustrating.
And now it seems there is another major change coming
and again I won't be able to see how it affects my app
for some time...
So... am I safe in assuming - from reading various
comments and looking at the docs published with Xcode
2.1 - that the chances are that my app, which doesn't
do much more than use some custom views and use basic
AppKit/Foundation classes, will most likely just run
on an Intel machine once it is compiled as a Universal
Binary? It's not a big deal if the compatibility
issues are likely to be relatively minor and if it
will just mean ironing out some small bugs when the
new machines come out; what worries me is the idea of
having to rewrite hundreds of lines of code I'm
investing in right now a year or two down the line.
Sorry if this is a very basic question.
Cheers,
Keith
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