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[nickharambee]

this might be a silly question, but does MC work on macs?  i am thinking of buying a powerbook, but would need to be able to use my beloved MC and ape files.  I am aware that there is some software called 'Virtual PC' that emulates windows, but just wondered if it would be compatible without this?

thanks

nick

[glynor]

No joy.  Though I've asked for this once or twice in the past.

 

I've used Virtual PC quite a bit, and it does work, but it isn't spectacular ... It also doesn't work with anything that makes too heavy use of hardware resources (or doesn't work well as it's all software emulated rather than hardware accelerated) ... Eg, games.  I've never tried MC through Virtual PC, but I suspect it wouldn't like it much.

[kaiynne]

Glynor I feel your pain mate, but really this is a no-brainer.  The effort involved in porting MC to Mac would just not be worth it at all.  Not only are there far fewer Mac users but how many of them would even consider switching from i-tunes?  very few I am guessing.  Look at IE as an analogy, yes 5% of people are willing to make the effort to move to firefox, but the vast vast majority don't bother.  You could make a strong argument that i-tunes is far less broken than IE and thus there is even less incentive to switch.

On top of this MC has barely scratched the surface of the windows market, to waste time and money on trying to get a foothold in a market that is pretty much a lost cause doesn't seem like good business sense to me.

[glynor]

I can definately see it that way... EG, the Market Share vs. Effort argument.  However, I can also see it another way.  For example...

I am a user of three different system types: OSX, Windows, and Linux (Fedora currently).  Since you mentioned it, I myself use FireFox.  All the security stuff and tabbed browsing and all of that is all nice, but the real reason I use FireFox is because I can use the same browser on all three of my system types (with the same exact bookmarks file, UI, etc).  For me, at least, it had less to do with IE being broken than FireFox offering me something IE didn't ... Cross-Platform compatibility.  I would guess that I'm not the only one.

Also, I can see your point with iTunes not being broken, but it also isn't the same thing as MC.  I know the widespread view of Mac users is that they typically aren't power-users, but I think that especially when it comes to Media, that is a fallacy (Final Cut Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Freehand, MediaPipe, and countless other OSX-available media-related programs certainly are not novice level).

There just isn't a program for OSX that does what MC does.  MC and iTunes are no where near equivalent programs (and iPhoto makes me laugh).  The closest you can get to MC's functionality on a Mac right now is probably Extensis Portfolio which is certainly in a different class with a price of $200 (and I would probably say MC is better than it).  I see that as a reason TO go into the market, not to avoid it.

Plus, if you did go to the trouble of cross-platformizing MC for OSX, it would take only slightly more work to offer a Linux version too (since OSX is now built on UNIX).

Again, I can see the marketshare argument, but who knows how long that will last...

[Simple]

I am a user of three different system types: OSX, Windows, and Linux...

Why?

[glynor]

I use Mac OSX at work (I know, that's backwards, but it's the way it is).  I work in a Graphic Design/Multimedia shop and the department has always been Mac users (long before I worked there).  For my work I use Final Cut Pro (and other Apple video production tools) for work, freelance, and personal stuff which of course requires a Mac.  I also like the OSX versions of Colorbyte ImagePrint a little better than the Windows versions.  Of course, I use Photoshop, Freehand, Illustrator, and others (though all those are available for Windows too and just as good).

I use Windows on my "primary" machine at home and on my HTPC.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not so much of an anti-Windows fanboi (or an Apple fanboi).  Windows is okay, and is great for some things.  I certainly like it a LOT better than the old pre-OSX MacOS.  They both have upsides and downsides.  I also like to build my computers myself, and it's hard (not impossible but hard and expensive) to build a Mac.  I recently just finished doing just that though, so now I have one at home.

I have a linux box because how else can I get a secure, stable, server box for free?  It manages a wide variety of tasks on my home network.  Plus bash and the other POSIX command-line tools it affords are far more powerful than the laughable Windows shell.  My other Linux box is a Firewall (IPCop).

I basically like to use the best tool for the task I have at hand.  Sometimes it's Linux, sometimes its OSX, and sometimes its Windows.

[Simple]

Thanks for your answer, these are very good reasons. But this is a lot of work...