12-14-2005, 09:24 AM

Hello all

Ive been developing applications for the Microsoft Windows platform for over 5 years. I bought a new Apple PowerMac G5 Quad machine and Apple iBook G4 for my music and video hobby. But im considering to write applications for the Mac platform, but there is a problem.

I believe in the near future Apple will be using Intel CPU's and in order to write for Intel CPU's i would need to write software in Xcode 2.2

So, do i start to write applications using the Universal Binarys (in which i believe UB's dont support for specific instruction set) or is there any point writing applications that are for the IBM CPU's, technologies such as, Carbon?

I dont want to waste my time writing software that may become useless if there is no more support for the product example, ive got a encryption software that require's certain CPU instructions, now if i wrote that application today i would use the IBM CPU instruction set, once the application is finished, it can be used on any Apple Mac that has the G5 or IBM CPU but not on a Intel CPU (x86 architecture)

But if Apple are going to introduce the Intel CPU, my application wont be able to work because its CPU specific.

I may get a response from you saying "Buy the Apple Intel Transistion Kit" my answer would be simple, "give me the money and i would be happy to buy it", but i can't because its too expensive.

Or shall i consider not bother writing applications at all for the Mac until they get this Intel CPU business in there products and in the shops.

Any advice from you espesically the programmers, would be helpful.

p.s, sorry for my bad spelling and grammer, im not feeling well at all

12-14-2005, 08:58 PM

If you program in Xcode 2, then you shouldn't have any problems going to the Intel platform.

12-15-2005, 04:33 AM

You might be better off asking this kind of question in the Development forum or join the Apple developer mailing lists. You can create a free Apple developer username and get connected taht way, as I recall.

Universal binaries are exactly that. When using the latest XCode, you set a flag that compiles your code for each processor. So, each binary does support for specific instruction set of the target processor. Next Computer (the company OS X is really derived from) had the ability to compile for at least four processors.

If your code is written in assembly, then yea, you have an issue.

If your writing this code is C then Xcode should be able to handle it for both Intel and PPC processors. There maybe the byte order issue to be concerned about and I believe Apple has libraries to make that easy to handle.

If your using the SSE3 or Altivec, then Apples latest recommendation is to use a framework or library they have that will allow you to code once, and compile for both processors. You'll have to dig through their latest developer articles on that. Maybe start here; http://developer.apple.com/transition/index.html

I can't be much more help than that because I don't actually develop on the Mac. I try to keep some cursory awareness though.

12-15-2005, 03:44 PM

After watching Steve Jobs WWDC presentation, my prayers have been answered and yes your were right xstep, Universal Binarys.

I guess i will have to "relax" on Assembly code and stick to Cocoa development.

Thanks for your reply, is has really helped me.

Thanks again my Mac/Windows friends. Looking forward to the Intel platform.