Greetings, all.
I wonder if, in addition to reviving the x86 port of NeXTSTEP...er...OS
X, Apple has revived the Yellow Box for Windows. Let's consider a few
things that make this an interesting notion.
1- NeXTSTEP was multi-platform (HPPA, Sparc, m68k, x86)
2- Apple never killed the x86 port of NeXTSTEP/OS X
3- From a business perspective, Yellow Box is much more interesting to
Apple than is WINE
4- iTunes for Windows exists today and it looks and functions identical
to the Mac version
Now, if iTunes for Windows is what I think it is, then iTunes for
Windows is a product of the Yellow Box. Yellow Box means that Mac
developers can tick a checkbox to compile Cocoa (that is, OS X native)
applications for Windows. Apple recently revealed that internal builds
of Xcode kept the "x86 binary" checkbox... who's to say they don't also
still have the "Windows binary" checkbox?
Why would Apple be interested in this? Well, now that Apple machines
are going to be x86 boxes, then obviously some people will want to run
Windows apps side-by-side their Mac apps. (Not me, mind you, but some
will.) There are two ways to accomplish this: run Mac apps on Windows,
and run Windows apps on Mac OS X. The former could be accomplished with
the Yellow Box; the latter with WINE. Apple gains nothing from the
latter option, and with it potentially even suffers a major failure a
la OS/2.
On the other hand, with Yellow Box, Apple has plenty to gain. They gain
some level of control over Windows development as developers switch to
OS X so they can "write once and deploy everywhere," for real and for
good. Apple gains market share on the user end, too, as users see their
existing purchases can run on either platform -- they are, after all,
universal binaries that can run on PPC and x86 Mac OS X, and on
Windows. Then, the users have the choice of running those apps on the
clunky Windows OS with its security issues, or the elegant Unix-based
Mac OS X, with fewer security issues. This is, I think, a huge winner
for Apple.
Apple could also, at a moment's notice, announce and release all of
their software for Windows. I have no idea why they would want to do
it, but if iTunes is compiled in Yellow Box, so could be iPhoto, iDVD,
iMovie, Aperture, DVD Studio Pro, and the rest of them all.
I wonder if Apple is doing this... I guessed correctly for the last
Stevenote... I wonder if I'm right on this one.
Daniel
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