Apple should Cross Compile all old aps

[pubwvj]

There is are a tremendous number of old educational titles for Macintosh that have been abandoned. The companies are out of business or simply don't have the resources to upgrade the software to MacOSX and iPad/iPod/iPhone. Yet, these are wonderful applications and it is a shame that the current generation of children can't use them.

Apple has always been a strong supporter of education. Please do something to fix this problem. Please make it so that the older software can continue to run on future MacOSX/iOS operating systems and hardware.

The power of the modern hardware is plenty capable of doing emulation. But there may be an even better way: create an application that users can buy from the iTunes store and Mac Store to cross compile applications from Classic to the new operating system and hardware. By letting users run the cross compiler themselves it eliminates the issue of legalities because the end user is running the cross compiler, not you. This also means that all old software could be cross compiled and not just the few that would get cross compiled if developers or Apple did it one at a time.

With Apples billions of dollars surely you can support the old software, education and students of the future. Don't let the wonderful creations in the old software die.

 

[maflynn]

Apple was a strong supporter of education - not so much during the Job's reign.

As for recompiling old apps, its generally not as simple as running the old source code through the compiler. APIs change, libraries change. It generally means that more work by analysts and programmers. Being that it requires some work, and expense. Given that it will not likely make any money means there's little business incentive to do that.

Edit:
by the way just because they have billions doesn't mean they should not be good stewards of their resources - that is spend money that has little value to such a limited group of users.

 

[gibbz]

Apple was a strong supporter of education - not so much during the Job's reign.

That's not really true in my opinion.

There are plenty of awesome education items from Apple.

Heck, in 2007 they passed Dell as the number one supplier of portable computers in higher education.

Now with the advent of the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, there are even more avenues for students with the largest app ecosystem out there for such devices.

This year, they gave students who bought a Mac a $100 app store gift card. In the past, it has also been free iPods.

It was recently announced that iTunes U surpassed 600 million downloads.

I guess I don't know what you mean by "support".