A few days ago, Adam explained on his blog why it would make sense for Apple to port Safari to Windows: "Maybe it's making a leap of faith, and yes, the browser market is one where making a noticeable entrance will be challenging, but the less of a jump into the deep end buying a Mac is, the easier it is to make your Apple brand accessble, available, and not scary. The best way to start? Safari on Windows." Yesterday, Mary Jo Foley dug up from deep within Mozilla's Wiki the following prediction by the Mozilla Foundation: "Apple may have Safari on Windows with likely ties to iTunes and .Mac." This line has now been changed into a more general statement ("WebKit may be ported to Windows" - which already happened) but point remains: does it make sense for Apple to port Safari to Windows?
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Member since:2005-04-01
iTunes and QuickTime are ports, and were orig. designed to take advantage of Mac APIs.
Nonsense. Much of the design of the Apple Carbon API FOR Mac came from the original Quicktime on Windows.
"Carbon [...] is also closer in style to the Win32 APIs of Windows, and therefore may be a better choice for cross-platform development. In fact, the Carbon project at Apple was developed from the Quicktime for Windows codebase which has included a substantial subset of the classic Mac OS APIs since the early 1990s."
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_(API)
Ports of those APIs to Windows (e.g. WebKit) don't seem to measure up.
Webkit is not an API, it's an application unto itself. The API is Cocoa, and it hasn't been ported to Windows (at least pubically). Most existing Apple Windows apps are Carbon. Carbon is actually faster than Cocoa.
Either way, Safari is a Cocoa app and Quicktime and iTunes are Carbon apps. So it could be more stable (or less, I guess we wouldn't know unless we had a chance to use it).
Member since:2005-07-06
1. The orig. QuickTime for windows was what? 15 years past. Modern QuickTime and ancient QuickTime are essentially two different beasts.
2. WebKit is an API (its an application framework). It includes WebCore, an HTML engine, and JavaScriptCore, a JavaScript engine. WebKit is definitely not an application.
3. Not making much sence of the carbon vs. cocoa stuff in this context...yes I know the difference.
Research before you burn somebody.
Edited 2007-01-12 23:09
Member since:2005-11-09
Member since:2005-04-01
Member since:2005-11-13
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows just plain don't work as well as they do on the Mac. Their interfaces feel slightly sluggish and QuickTime is prone to crashes.
I guess that would explain why Mac users love these apps so much, because they just plain suck on Windows. For example, when I was test driving iTunes v7 on WinXP, just playing an mp3 file (on a P4-2.8ghz w/512MB RAM) resulted in frequent CPU spikes of over 40% (up as high as 48%), while other players (such as Winamp) never used more than 2% CPU resources.
And I'm thinking "How can people actually use this thing?" Well, based on what you said, it's because it works much better on Macs 
As for Safari, not really interested, unless it does something special that Opera and Firefox don't.
Member since:2005-07-06
Those CPU spikes probably have a reason. In my experience iTunes never skips a beat in music playing while doing other things on the computer, whereas WMP and Winamp might. Now, I'm not saying that this holding hostage of the CPU is the best thing in all circumstances, but for the vast majority of general-purpose users, having their music play without missing a beat is probably more important than the occasional CPU spike.
Apple also has the graphical equalizer function on by default, which makes the music sound much better. For a true test of its performace, though, you should try it with the equalizer turned off.
The only issue I've had with iTunes is that on certain PCs (it seems to depend on the graphics chipset/driver), the search function is dog-slow, pausing after every keypress. On the PCs where this problem isn't present, however, it works smooth as butter, just like on a Mac.
Edited 2007-01-13 17:12
Member since:2006-01-03
Member since:2006-05-29
No it is not. If it was a Windows thing, then MediaPlayer, MPlayer, VCL, WinAmp and all the other Windows Media Apps would suffer from the same problems, but those work very well and use very little resources (1-2% on a modern System at maximum).
So obviously the Windows Ports of iTunes and Quicktime simply suck. Part of the problem is their stupid themed Userinterface which unfortunately show an deep lack of Windows Programming knowledge on Apples side, because even themed Apps on Windows don't have to be sluggish and slow if you know what you are doing. What is the point in making Windowsversions look like Mac Apps anyway?
Member since:2006-01-20
Member since:2006-05-29
"Maybe this is because of a lack of effort on Apple's part, or maybe iTunes expects a more graphically advanced & stable GUI for it to operate correctly."
Apple uses a very badly implemented theming for their Windows ports. It has nothing to do with "advanced & stable GUI", it has something to do with not playing the retarded Programmer when implementing this on Windows.
I realy hate themed Apps, but there are many themed Apps on Windows that don't have a performance hit.
A few actually are as badly implemented as the Win-iTunes, like the "Connect Player" for Sonys MP3-Players. I guess the problem is, that those Programmers working in these Companys on client Apps aren't the kind of Programmers who usually would spend time on thinking about implementing theming.
Why the f**k do mediaplayers always have to be themed anyway?
Member since:2005-07-20
http://foobar2000.org/
Once you've tried it, you'll never go back.
Member since:2005-07-06
I like themed apps, when the themes are sensible and don't hog resources too much. Take for instance the Winamp theme I've got going, that makes Winamp fit right into my Vista-esqe themed Windows setup (it's not a perfect match, but I find it far preferable to a solution like FooBar2000).
http://twoday.tuwien.ac.at/static/personal/files/ClipBoard-21.jpg
Of course, if the software designers only give you ONE really bad theme, with no alternative options to download (which is the case with software from Sony, Creative, Real and yes Windows Media Player since its skins are a joke), that's a different story.
(However I think the Apple skinned apps are generally quite practical in a design sense, if not in a resource sense.)
Edited 2007-01-13 17:08
Member since:
2005-07-06
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows just plain don't work as well as they do on the Mac. Their interfaces feel slightly sluggish and QuickTime is prone to crashes.
On the Mac, their interfaces are responsive, light, and never freeze or crash.
I don't think this is just a "windows" thing. iTunes and QuickTime are ports, and were orig. designed to take advantage of Mac APIs. Ports of those APIs to Windows (e.g. WebKit) don't seem to measure up. Maybe this is because of a lack of effort on Apple's part, or maybe iTunes expects a more graphically advanced & stable GUI for it to operate correctly.
The bottom line is, I doubt a Safari port would work as well on Windows as on the Mac for which it was designed. A port might just denigrate Apple's reputation as a software company.