Top Secret Features of MacOS X 10.5 Leopard

[zgh1999]

I think the top secret feature of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard will be the "Red Box" or project code named "Chameleon" -- the ability of Mac OS 10.5 to run windows applications natively without emulation.

There are a couple of reasons why I think this is likely:

(1) Vista has benn released -- While Mac OS 10.4 is on par or ahead of Vista, Apple needs something that would present itself as a noverwhelming proposition vis a vis Vista. Having a face lift of the Mac OS gui or finder or Time Machine is likely not going to be enough to constitute any major advancement to counter Vista -- so Apple needs to pull a stunner like this.

(2) Apple has the expertise to pull this off -- think of all the experience from Classic and Rosetta.

(3) This may be one of the reasons why Apple switched to Intel from PPC.

(4) It makes sense -- it would encourage would-be switchers to finally pull the trigger.

I think Apple would not try to implement the Windows API within Mac OS -- rather, I think Apple would simply build into Mac OS 10.5 the ability to install and run Windows OS without the need to shutdown Mac OS and reboot. So, this would likely require the users to buy and install Vista or XP within Mac OS 10.5

The reason is that this is easier, and of course, it would avoid the risk of developers being encouraged not to develop for Mac OS. If Mac OS has the ability to run windows applications without needing to install windows OS, then developers would have no incentive to develope for the Mac -- they would just develop for Windows and expect Mac users to run their apps in Mac OS.

Apple already has Boot Camp -- which requires shut down of the Mac OS and reboot into Windows -- so it is clearly an advantage for Apple to come up with something that would allow users to avoid reboot into Windows.

I am looking forward to this because it would send AAPL to $200 and above -- not counting the iPhone effect -- and it would also send MSFT to $10 or below.

 

[Gee]

I am looking forward to this because it would send AAPL to $200 and above -- not counting the iPhone effect -- and it would also send MSFT to $10 or below.

And Parallels to 10¢ a share....

 

[xUKHCx]

Using this method what is there to stop the plethora of windows viruses doing damage to OS X. Think the parallels/bootcamp solution provides a layer which prevents OS X from getting fubar.

 

[Eraserhead]

Using this method what is there to stop the plethora of windows viruses doing damage to OS X. Think the parallels/bootcamp solution provides a layer which prevents OS X from getting fubar.

True, and Apple would also be allowing Windows programs to compete with Mac ones, which isn't good.

 

[M@lew]

Shouldn't this be in the rumour section? Or news? Or anywhere other than Software Mac OS X?

Anyway, did you make this "Chameleon" up or did you genuinely hear something about it somewhere?

 

[Chaszmyr]

Using this method what is there to stop the plethora of windows viruses doing damage to OS X. Think the parallels/bootcamp solution provides a layer which prevents OS X from getting fubar.

They could go Vista style. Any time a Windows thing ran, it would say "*insert name here* is trying to launch, are you sure you would like this program to run?"

 

[zgh1999]

why would windows virii or malwares affect the the Mac that runs windows -- any more than it would affect a Mac that also boots into windows via boot camp?

Eveything under the red box or chameleon that I am predicting would be just what what Apple already has under Boot Camp -- except that the user does not need to exit Mac OS and does not need to reboot.

Sure, virus may affect the windows system -- but I would assume Apple would keep everything windows under a contained system, including a separate partitition etc, like it did in Boot Camp.

Red Box is real dude...this is not a joke

 

[djellison]

why would windows virii or malwares affect the the Mac that runs windows -- any more than it would affect a Mac that also boots into windows via boot camp?

You do know that a Mac running XP or Vista via Bootcamp CAN be affected by Virii or Malware etc etc. When you installed Bootcamp and run XP - you're just running a PC. Nothing more. A PC with all the malware and virii that are out there for PC's

When you install Bootcamp you've also got to install AV software etc etc. If you don't - you're asking for trouble.

Doug

 

[Eraserhead]

The point about the current system is that you have to be computer savvy enough to download bootcamp from apple.com, install Windows and then all the appropriate drivers. By which point you have to be knowledgeable enough to install anti-virus.

 

[72930]

I think that you are looking for a better version of Codeweaver's Crossover, which has quite a limited amount of programs that work (by using WINE)

When I switched, there were plenty of Windows apps I wished I could use natively, but now there are 0, nada, nothing. My uncle on the other hand has to use Parallels for CorelDraw (BTW, does anyone have experience of this with Crossover?)

 

[Cromulent]

why would windows virii or malwares affect the the Mac that runs windows -- any more than it would affect a Mac that also boots into windows via boot camp?

Sorry to go off topic but the plural of virus is viruses. There was no plural of virus in latin. In fact the nearest latin word to virii was viri but that means men.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Red Box is real dude...this is not a joke

Are you sure....?

I thought Red Box was an old rumor in relation to NeXT on x86, regarding the same Windowz-apps context.
IIRC:
Yellow Box (native apps - like the Cocoa of now)
Blue Box (boot old OS - like Classic now.... still called TrueBlueEnvironment)
Red Box (as described... CrossOver being closest thing to it now)

 

[SMM]

In thinking about the challenge of running window programs natively in OSX, a few things come to mind quickly. The API could be rewritten with OSX calls and replaced. The registry is a big stumbling block for my small brain. That is, if you do not want to have to load windows (which is what would appeal to me). I develop software for Windows, but I never use the registry. To me, it is Pandora's box. Instead I use configuration tables in the Sql database (similar to an /etc file) and .profile file for user parameters. I came from Unix, and this made more sense to me. I am not sure how you could replace this, if you are trying to make a windows program run in OSX. Of course, if you had the vendor's assistance, it might not be too much of an issue. Interestingly, a couple years back, some of the major SW labels were being encouraged by Redmond to move away from use of the registry. I am positive it happened, but am light on the details.

 

[Luigi239]

You really think that it would send Apple's stock up $85, and bring Microsoft's down $20?

Yeah...you keep thinking that.

 

[daveL]

Why would Apple spend its scarce internal technical resources to reinvent the wheel? Parallels does exactly what you are talking about, and VMware will be available in a couple months. Not to mention writing a VM from scratch is a nontrivial undertaking. Sorry, but this is the last thing Apple is going to do, IMO.

 

[Nym]

I've thought about this and... no...

Why? Because then there would only be Windows software, the developers would go:

"Why hire another team to build the software for Mac? They run Windows Apps now..."

What this means is that you would lose all those cool OSX native apps that have all these nice effects and are built using the Core libraries of OSX, instead of emulating someone else's API's.

That's my 2 cents, if this happens, OSX will be a fugly GUI with all those Windows apps thrown in there.

 

[SC68Cal]

Classic is not a feature to be proud of. It was a kludge. Gum and duct-tape.

If the WINE project cannot reverse-engineer the Windows APIs, I doubt that Apple would be crazy enough to try and do that as well.

And let's face it, if Apple relies on virtualization to run Windows apps, and advertises that, people are going to wonder why you would even by a mac! Why not just buy windows and run your apps like usual? People are afraid of change!

Plus, look what happened to IBM with OS/2! They tried to get along with Microsoft and get M$ apps to work in the OS/2 environment, and Microsoft stabbed them in the back for their trouble.

 

[kinchee87]

(1) Vista has benn released -- While Mac OS 10.4 is on par or ahead of Vista, Apple needs something that would present itself as a noverwhelming proposition vis a vis Vista. Having a face lift of the Mac OS gui or finder or Time Machine is likely not going to be enough to constitute any major advancement to counter Vista -- so Apple needs to pull a stunner like this.

So that would mean Adobe wasted their time making CS3 for the Mac? What about Microsoft making Mac Office 2008?

(3) This may be one of the reasons why Apple switched to Intel from PPC.

Or could just be a side effect. Apple has been developing an x86 version of Mac OS for a long time. The reason they gave for the CPU change over was the lack of advancement with the PPC processor.

I think Apple would not try to implement the Windows API within Mac OS -- rather, I think Apple would simply build into Mac OS 10.5 the ability to install and run Windows OS without the need to shutdown Mac OS and reboot. So, this would likely require the users to buy and install Vista or XP within Mac OS 10.5

Implies a profit to Microsoft for every Mac user who decides to use this functionality. You would think that Parallels and VMWare to have already implement this than to use a virtual machine ...
Question is, how would you be able to initialise Windows without hardware conflicts and not use a virtual machine?