Im not a techie, but I always wondered...

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Why cant Apple just design the Macs to support the Window/DOS formats? Such a .exe

And, why dont the Macs just come with a codec that supports all the different media types? I mean, not even QT Pro supports every media format.

Thanks in advance. =D
 
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tenbellys

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i have therories on number one but ill save that for someone who knows.

as for number two there is all sorts of legal issues like licensing to take into consideration with integrating other peoples software.
 

dtravis7


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jaywong87 said:
Why cant Apple just design the Macs to support the Window/DOS formats? Such a .exe

And, why dont the Macs just come with a codec that supports all the different media types? I mean, not even QT Pro supports every media format.

Thanks in advance. =D


The Codec part I am all for as it would make it easier for the end user that really does not know a lot about searching for codecs on the web. At least support AVI out of the box anyway. You can find the Codecs you need though on the Web for most everything right in Quicktime. Whatever else that will not play should work fine in VLC.

As far as .exe, that is a DOS/Windows Executable, OSX is unix based and will not run Windows or Dos EXE files. The only way is Windows or DOS or an Emulator. If Apple EVER switches from OSX to Windows I am out of here! If I wanted a true Windows machine I would buy one and have many.

I bought a Mac for OSX. No other reason.
 
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jaywong87 said:
Why cant Apple just design the Macs to support the Window/DOS formats? Such a .exe

And, why dont the Macs just come with a codec that supports all the different media types? I mean, not even QT Pro supports every media format.

Thanks in advance. =D

Macs are UNIX based and therefor natively incompatible with Windows Apps. If Apple were to make OSX compatible with Windows Apps, OSX would have to become Windows for them all to work properly. Neither Apple or M$ is going to let that happen.

Many of the codecs do not exist for the Mac because no one has written them for the Mac. This is neither Apple's or M$s fault, but that of the people who refuse to write the codecs for the Mac.
 
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jaywong87 said:
Why cant Apple just design the Macs to support the Window/DOS formats? Such a .exe

Allthough this question might have some relevance, I have another one:

Why is it so difficult for many people to understand that OS X (or any other Mac OS version) simply is NOT WIndows, and therefore IS different?

They are two different types of operating systems, and therefore surely have some significant differences, and things you can do with one, you just can't with the other (without starting another threda about which one's better).

It's like two colors, let's take red and green. Both are colors, so the same type of product (Windows and Mac OS both are OSes), both can be used to paint (you can work with a computer with Windows and Mac OS), but you can't paint in green with the red color, and vice versa (Mac OS software doesn't run on Windows, and vice versa).
 
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I don't think it's a matter of whether or not people do or do not understand that OS X and Windows are definitely not one and the same. Rather, I believe it has to do with the fact that Windows' has such a large market share. They have a large number of developers on board simply due to the fact that Windows applications pay more than Mac (simply due to the size of the base market). While the quality of applications on the Mac tends to be, in a majority of cases, far superior to those on Windows, the ratio in a quantity perspective strays from suit. Because of this, a style of application that may have 4-5 different versions in an x86 format, may not have any equal comparison on a Mac platform. I don't have the brain power right now to list off examples, but I will give one: a universal Web Cam Application. By the term "universal", please understand that I do NOT mean Universal Binary. Rather, I mean universal in the sense that it works well across multiple platforms. Sure, web cams work great for me if I have buddies who also have a Mac, and iChat AV, but well... I have 2 friends on my buddy list who qualify for that classification.

Anyway, what Avalon is saying is indeed true. The two OSes are exactly that--two OSes. They're built on different platforms, and inherantly support a completely different set of assembly code. They were both started long enough ago with the aspiration of being the "norm". Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, as I think this characterized what Apple has become today, along w/ it's community) Microsoft controls the market share in this OS sense. With it, .exe has become the norm, and I'd say 90% of Windows users would think you were making up an extension if you were to mention the .dmg format.

On the bright side (or actually, THE DARK SIDE!), Apple is beginning to integrate Windows into it's own OS (through the introduction of the official Apple release, Boot Camp, and Parallels' Windows Virtualization software). With this, we now have the option of either running Windows straight up, or running Windows in a window (oooh pun!) inside of OS X. Both ways give you .exe support, however one gives you graphics support as well (Boot Camp) while the other allows you to run OS X apps at the same time (Parallels). Unfortunately, this only runs on the Intel-Macs (understandably so as these are the only Mac machines that have a processor that can simply process the instructions), and therefore leaves out a good portion of the Mac community.

So I guess to sum up: Most of the responses here are sufficient. Plain and simple the two OSes run on two entirely different platforms. OS X is built off of a UNIX base, while Windows is well, Windows. However, things are moving in the right direction, in the sense that eventually it won't matter whether or not an application is only built for Windows. OS X will run it anyway, as long as you have an Intel-based Mac.
 
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caveatipss

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jaywong87 said:
Why cant Apple just design the Macs to support the Window/DOS formats? Such a .exe

And, why dont the Macs just come with a codec that supports all the different media types? I mean, not even QT Pro supports every media format.

Thanks in advance. =D

Don't they now, as of five days ago?
 

rman


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To make it as simple as possible. In must cases a .exe file is a window binary executable file. The file is all of the requirements to run a windows pc (libraries and system calls, etc.). Whereas on an Apple system the libraries and the system calls are different. So to get the .exe program to work on an Apple system, the code needs to be recompiled and some of the system calls maybe need to be changed.
 
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rman said:
To make it as simple as possible. In must cases a .exe file is a window binary executable file. The file is all of the requirements to run a windows pc (libraries and system calls, etc.). Whereas on an Apple system the libraries and the system calls are different. So to get the .exe program to work on an Apple system, the code needs to be recompiled and some of the system calls maybe need to be changed.
Exactly. When source code is compiled, the compiler takes that code and essentially builds a set of assembly code instructions that can be read by the processor. When you compile something for the x86 platform, you're turning it into a language that is only decipherable by an Intel/AMD CPU. That's why Rosetta runs programs slower on the new Intel Macs. It's actually taking the code written for the PowerPC CPUs, and translating it to be legible for the Intel CPUs.
 

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