More > Media Center 16 (Development Ended)

MC for Mac OS?

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jkemers:
You are very right relating cost of two developments vs. doing job well in one.

At the same time most strange thing happened to me.
I have been fanatic and technical windows user for 15 years, and was extremely skeptical about osx.
Then last autumn I just got fed up about Windows (including W7), crashing and getting slower after each other month of use, and tried mac.

Now I have two of the at home, have thrown out all my PCs with W7.
I tell you it just works!!! Is so much faster, and better. Yes, iTunes is disaster in terms of human rights limitations. But what a fantastic feeling with all open apps in photos editing, video recoding - just fly. Imaging both Mac Book Air and all-in-one iMac from zero starts in 30 seconds.
And most importantly I don't have to switch it off, struggle with semi crashed sleep modes wake-ups. I haven't switched off or restarted my Mac in last month, and it wakes up in one second when I touch keyboard!!! I had few times some apps crashed, but it' so very very seldom.

The only thing it still lacks in good Media Center app. But sorry, I don't want to even think putting W7 on Mac to MC. W7 on MAc is just wrong.
Watch out Plex. Even that application is poor today, no HD Audio focus, they are crazy about Video support and have launched Windows version.

Janis

MrHaugen:
If you can have a simple HTPC with Windows in your home, then you'll have to deal with the limited alternatives.
I do not understand the problem having one basic installation of windows with MC on it though. Once the OS is installed, drivers installed, and MC set up, you should not have a problem with Windows at all. My Win 7 HTPC works great. No problems at all.

Vincent Kars:
What about MC for Android?
Probably a bigger market than OSX

preproman:

--- Quote from: Vincent Kars on April 03, 2011, 10:21:15 am ---What about MC for Android?
Probably a bigger market than OSX

--- End quote ---

Android bigger market than OSX??

Go take a look at the computer audiophile message board http://www.computeraudiophile.com - There is a great deal of JRiver users over there.  However, it is primarily a MAC community.  It would be a great step forward to have JRiver on a MAC.  It's a few good audio programs that they rave about over there.  Pure Music, Audirvana, Amarra just to name a few.  There are a few others that are just now making a splash in the market.  Someone said Plex was the only good media server for OSX,  I don't think so...  XBMC rules... Why?? because it has been open source for so long.  For video, It just works and getting better and better all the time.  Now for Music.  JRiver Rules...  If there was a OSX version it would yield a lot of competition from the other music players out there.  However JRiver brings so much more to the table.  Not only bit perfect playback but also A killer GUI and add ons.  Play Doctor is the bomb.  JRiver would in no time have many more users. 

As one other person said - the man power and resources would be the only problem to support two different platforms. 

MrHaugen:

--- Quote from: preproman on April 03, 2011, 01:54:25 pm ---As one other person said - the man power and resources would be the only problem to support two different platforms. 

--- End quote ---

Yes, it might be only one problem. But this is also a huge one! First think of the development cost to make this program platform independent. How long would that take? Many months? More than a year? In the meantime, do you think the current huge group of MC users would be happy? How many would drop MC and try out other players, instead of waiting on new builds and versions?

Once the process is done, you're faced with an increased time of development for each feature. It might be possible to compile code for both OSx and Windows at the same time (?), but your bound to increase the time used anyway. Both on testing the two different apps on two OS's, and you have the cases where you just HAVE to have OS different solutions on each system. Just to take a number from my head, I would say that the increase in development cost would at least go up with 50%.

No. Unfortunately, the development cost is not the only problem. The market share is just as important imo. OSx is getting some footing in the OS market, but they are not nearly as huge as Microsoft. Some parts of the world have embraced Steve's restricted policies more than others, but they are still much behind. Also think of how little known MC is in the Apple community. Even though you would have some audiophile people adapting it fast, it would take a lot of time to see the needed income from the OSx part of this big project. Probably several years before the initial cost is covered.

What about development environment or OS favoritism? All of the J River Staff have been working in a MS environment for lots of years now. Do you think a OSx version would get the same attention as the Windows version? Especially when it will take so much time before this part is bringing in the dollars. A company can have all the policies they want. They can promise that an app should work just as well on one system compared to another, but in most cases people are colored by their own opinions, and they tend to prioritize what they like the most. I think iTunes is a good example of such a project we're talking of here. On OSx the application works pretty much as it's supposed to, even though it's limited as hell. On Windows the application tend to behave a lot worse though.


Could someone with a bit more software development experience please write a good forum posts here, so we can have a sticky one? :D

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