Bonjour for Windows

[maxterpiece]

if mac mini is for pc users who want an extra computer for the living room, then this allows the mac mini to communicate with that PC.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Releasing iChat on the PC would be cool too. Maybe then I will know someone who will have a webcam.

iChat would be eaten alive by Trillian on Windows...There simply is no comparison.

 

[Mechcozmo]

iThink this has to do with Apple trying to get people to say "oOoh, macs do this automatically? Better double check that Apple Store....."

What do uThink?

 

[bommai]

Apple's response to uPnP

I wonder if Bonjour on Windows is Apple's response to the more prevalent uPnP for serving media to set top boxes. Right now, several devices including media center PCs, Roku PhotoBridge (I have one of these), Sound Bridge, etc are starting to support uPnP for media sharing. Using uPnP, you can do media sharing including photos, audio, movies, etc. I think Apple might want to roll out a media box that can connect to a Mac or PC using Bonjour. This box could connect to your home theater system including HDTVs and stream movies, pictures and audio to the TV (essentially replicating what Roku PhotoBridge does).

-Siva

 

[poundsmack]

iChat eaten alive by Trillian? i dought it. Trillian is a ogod program there is no dought....but come on....its iChat......there is defenently room for both and I am sure iChat would do fine faced off against Trillian...

 

[Mechcozmo]

On a somewhat related note...my brother-in-law just purchased a new HP all-in-one printer with built in 802.11. I had no idea they were making printers with 802.11 cards built into the printer!

anyway, I went over to set it up for them and the manual had a bunch of Mac info and even said things like "Mac's use a very simple and user friendly version of 802.11 called Airport", etc. It seemed very pro-Mac.

Needless to say, setup of the printer was a breeze and they are now printing wireless from the two ibooks in the house.

We have a wireless HP printer. Very nice. Only issue is that large files take a bit...

But it does appear in Rendezvous automatically! Er, Bonjour. At least its easier to spell... but it sucks. Rather spell check than have to use that name. Oh, well.

 

[SiliconAddict]

my thought exactly

It looks like it only includes a toolbar for IE, so no firefox.. I can hear the Firefox fans starting to complain annnnnnnny second now!

I will be #1. 🙁

Why is it that Apple is actively pushing Microsoft's agenda? I mean first with supporting .MAC syncing only with 2K and XP and now this. I'm going to have to play with the plugins. In some cases its as simple as copying a few DLL files from explorer's plugin dir into FireFox's to get the plugin to work. I hope this is the case but toolbars are a bit more complex then simple drag and drop in Internet Imploder. Grrrr.

 

[J-Squire]

Rendezvous is not derived from french, it is french. When used in a context with two individuals it usually has a negative connotation. i.e. if someone says "Voulez vous une rendezvous avec moi?" they're essentially asking if you would like to ride the bone roller coaster.

OK. You obviously have a weird idea of what constitutes a negative connotation. If a woman directed that sentence at me, I would say it had very positive connotations.

 

[wPod]

toktok, it's hard to get more dumb!!!

apparently sarcasim isnt expressed very easily on the internet! i was just trying to say that Bonjour seems a bit simple of a name for such a system. why dont we just call it "hello world" (i was also trying to poke fun at the freedom fry people, but i guess im not good at that!)

anyway. i will use plain english now. bonjour is the next step in apple becoming a serious developer for windows. which will in turn convert more people to apple. which will be good 🙂 until all the virus/spyware people start writing malicious code for apple :-/ i guess you cannot avoid the paparatzi when you are famous!

 

[SPUY767]

iChat eaten alive by Trillian? i dought it. Trillian is a ogod program there is no dought....but come on....its iChat......there is defenently room for both and I am sure iChat would do fine faced off against Trillian...

Agreed. iChat and trillian are different applications. There purpose is different. Trillian is for chatroom stalkers who want to maximize the amount of teenage cheerleaders they can talk to by using EVERY chat protocol ever. iChat is an OS level integrated system designed for ease of use, minimal need to configure, and of late, High quality video chat. Check it!

 

[kainjow]

Apple will never port over a Mac app that was made with Cocoa, that's just about every program, including Safari, Mail and iChat.

 

[SiliconAddict]

iChat eaten alive by Trillian? i dought it. Trillian is a ogod program there is no dought....but come on....its iChat......there is defenently room for both and I am sure iChat would do fine faced off against Trillian...

The only way Apple would be able to compete with Trillian is to make it FREE on Windows since Trillian is not.

Have you used Trillian? I've played around with iChat. Its a good chat client if all you want is AIM with next to no additional features.


I'd suggest checking out Trillian 3's features I have v2.13

My Trillian Pro install currently has AIM/ICQ/Yahoo/MSN/IRC up and running. I have an iChat skin on it that was good enough to fool a life long Mac user into thinking that Apple release iChat for Windows. The application supports all kinds of plugins. My favorite being IM forwarder.

 

[lilclmrboy]

Good news for networking

Seems like this speaks to users who plan on utilizing Xgrid. Xgrid does the leg work of creating a cluster via Bonjour - finally Windoze boxes can now be actually used for something useful. 🙂

 

[SiliconAddict]

Agreed. iChat and trillian are different applications. There purpose is different. Trillian is for chatroom stalkers who want to maximize the amount of teenage cheerleaders they can talk to by using EVERY chat protocol ever. iChat is an OS level integrated system designed for ease of use, minimal need to configure, and of late, High quality video chat. Check it!

🙄 Right. Because entering each username password, clicking next and repeating the process until you have all your clients set up takes a freaking rocket scientist. I love how people love to keep using Apple's supposed motto Think Different yet when an app comes along that supports every protocol everyone regroups and it’s Think Apple. 🙄

PS- And I can't tell you how much easier my life is at stalking people now that I have Trillian. I mean before I had to have 3 clients open which was a real pain when I got my conversations crossed. 🙄

 

[sirjimithy1]

I agree with the above that this is a trojan. I have a sneeky feeling that this has something to do with future video / networking tech that we don't know about yet.

I set up an airport express last night (upgrading from a linksys 802.11b router), and I was extremely impressed not only with the internet / data transfer speeds, but especially with the ease of getting the network printer to work. I was surprised to find that it used Bonjour, I thought that had to be a printer specific deal (I didn't know the airport products utilized the technology)

Anyway, I have a feeling this is bigger than it seems.

-alywa

There's nothing really hidden about it. Airport Base Stations have been using Bonjour (Rendezvous) for sharing printers since the first Airport Extreme Base Station, and Apple came right out and said that's the technology they use for Airport printer sharing. It's built into several OS X Applications, including Image Capture, iPhoto, Safari, iTunes, Printer Setup Utility, iChat and just about other app that comunicates over a network. Airport Express base stations use it for Airtunes to make it discoverable to iTunes. It's by no means a trojan.

 

[cheekyspanky]

I had Rendezvous installed on my PC months ago, I think it was in the developer section, but it was definitely available.

 

[bretm]

I'd rather have ical, safari, addressbook and isync for windoze. Not that many people can take full advantage of isync unless they have 2 macs. Most pepple have to use windoze at work so it would be great to be able to sync your calander, bookmarks and contacts with your macs or even other windozes machines. The more apple apps on windoze, the better.

When you use isync all those things are put into your .mac account. They are put into your phone. They are put into your ipod. They sync your laptop to your main computer. But just having my bookmarks online and my address book online and my calendar online is a reason to get .mac and use isync. My girlfriend has a mac, but uses hotmail, so I sync all my stuff on her computer as well and it's just like home.

 

[bretm]

iThink this has to do with Apple trying to get people to say "oOoh, macs do this automatically? Better double check that Apple Store....."

What do uThink?

I think it's simply Apple expanding the company. When is everyone going to realize everything that Apple does is not to make people go "oh, maybe I should buy a mac?" Apple is a company trying to expand. It has lost the platform wars. Henceforth itunes and ipod. iTunes for windows made it a viable product for windows users. Apple wants to sell stuff and make money. They also want to make the best stuff and believe their platform is better, but they know they can't hang on that forever. Look for them to be more of a software company in the future, porting over iMove, FCP, etc. to windows. Then, maybe the OS. Then look for them to become a high end PC manufacturer like Sony. Rumor is they almost went Intel until IBM came along with the G5. Motorola came close to destroying them as a hardware company - and you've got to figure they don't plan on ever being backed into that corner again.

 

[killuminati]

i just wish it was still called rendezvous! 🙄

Me too, Bonjour sounds so corny. I guess it kinda still makes sense though.

 

[Gizmotoy]

The only way Apple would be able to compete with Trillian is to make it FREE on Windows since Trillian is not.

Have you used Trillian? I've played around with iChat. Its a good chat client if all you want is AIM with next to no additional features.

Trillian is definately the chat app to beat on Windows. And seriously, iChat isn't even the best chat program available for OS X (Adium). I should probably qualify that with the fact that I do no videoconferencing, which would be the only reason for me to fire up iChat, really. Unless you spend lots of time on IM in videoconferences, you can probably do better than iChat.

 

[Mechcozmo]

I think it's simply Apple expanding the company. When is everyone going to realize everything that Apple does is not to make people go "oh, maybe I should buy a mac?" Apple is a company trying to expand. It has lost the platform wars. Henceforth itunes and ipod. iTunes for windows made it a viable product for windows users. Apple wants to sell stuff and make money. They also want to make the best stuff and believe their platform is better, but they know they can't hang on that forever. Look for them to be more of a software company in the future, porting over iMove, FCP, etc. to windows. Then, maybe the OS. Then look for them to become a high end PC manufacturer like Sony. Rumor is they almost went Intel until IBM came along with the G5. Motorola came close to destroying them as a hardware company - and you've got to figure they don't plan on ever being backed into that corner again.

Uh, except that Apple makes nearly nothing on their OS. They make all their money on their hardware. That is why you won't ever see OS X on x86 or x64. They will never be a software company. Apple is first and foremost a hardware company, that spends a lot of time making software that helps to sell their hardware.

Oh, and whats iMove? 😛

BTW, FCP won't work very well on a Windows box seeing as it requires the ability to use the graphics card for on-the-fly previews. Windows doesn't work so well like that. Unless you start bringing Quartz over. Which requires a fair chunk of the OS if you think about it... all that tight hardware integration... I've got an idea, lets make our own hardware so that we can be SURE it all works nicely!

Oh, wait. 🙄

 

[broken_keyboard]

Maybe Bonjour is to programmers what the iPod is to consumers.

The consumer likes the iPod so much he considers buying a Mac.
The programmer likes the Bonjour API so much he gets curious about the OS X platform as a whole.

Or maybe they needed to port it for iTunes anyway, and thought they might as well release it separately...

 

[JesterJJZ]

Will never happen. If they port anything, it'll be the pro applications

I completely disagree. They will sooner port the entire line of consumer Apple software plus OSX to windows before they ever port Final Cut Pro. FCP is the sole reason why many many many people in the film and video industry get Macs to begin with, myself included. We make up most of Apple's hardware sales, ipod excluded. We are the one's getting multiple G5's, displays and Xraids. Apple will not want to let us go.

 

[JeffTL]

Very similar to Quicktime, and over-due in my opinion. It's going to be great: seeing peripheral packages with the Quicktime, Mac OS and now Bonjour logos. Zero config. Good Move. 🙂

The main peripheral that really calls for Bonjour is a network printer -- and none of them bear the Bonjour logo because it's implied. All name-brand network printers support Bonjour -- though it'd be good marketing on the part of HP et alii to go ahead and put the logo on the box.

 

[Makosuke]

You all realize that Rendezvous for Windows has been out for a long time don't you? I've had it on my Win2000 machine for many months (maybe a year).

Really? I sure wish I'd known that.

As far as I can tell, whether this is a first release or just an update, it's fairly straightforward: If you want to make sure your protocol is widely supported, make sure everybody can use it. Bonjour (man, of all the alternate words to pick, why that one?) is a neat and tidy way to get your printer working, as well as a few other things. Making sure that it's available for Windows will encourage printer manufacturers to support/keep supporting it.

If it becomes widespread enough, you've got a "standard" technology you can rely on to be supported by lots of manufacturers.

Luck would have it that we got a new Bonjour-enabled Brother printer where I work today (meaning I can get to it even before the glacially slow IT dept. gets it added to the DNS system), and I also noticed that OSX Server supports making LPR printers available via Rendezvous. I'm hoping that'll make it easier to configure than the flaming hoops I had to jump through to get Windows boxes printing through the XServe up till now. (Sure, you can SEE SMB shared printers, but actually print to them? Ha!)