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Producer · May 12, 2003, 09:53 PM

Just wondering what is involved with this port...if I am not mistaken isn't iTunes now Cocoa? So shouldn't this technically make it more difficult to port? Also any chance of using old yellow box for windows tools for the port? I just read an article about Apple setting up an exploritory comittee examining setting up apple as two separate companies; hardware adn software... and I am wondering also if this is the start of other Apple software being ported like final cut extra....though i dougt it....

Developer · May 12, 2003, 10:01 PM

iTunes is Carbon.
It probably uses a lot of QuickTime, so they might be able to reuse some portion of code when rewriting for Windows (in addition to the plain C stuff in the bowels).

direktor · May 12, 2003, 10:17 PM

How will iTunes be ported to Windows?

Vewwy cayfuwwy.

OpenStep · May 12, 2003, 10:46 PM

Even though iTunes isnt written with yellow box, I installed WebObjects 5.1 onto a spare 2k box and it includes an up to date "Yellow Box for Windows" development suite. It also had stickies.app, textedit.app, and of course the developer tools (project builder.app, interface builder.app)... guess it would be interesting if Apple ever does anything with it.

kennethmac2000 · May 12, 2003, 11:04 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
iTunes is Carbon.
It probably uses a lot of QuickTime, so they might be able to reuse some portion of code when rewriting for Windows (in addition to the plain C stuff in the bowels).

As far as I was aware, iTunes 4 is one of the first hybrid Carbon/Cocoa apps.

Do you have any concrete evidence which suggests it is pure Carbon?

Developer · May 12, 2003, 11:25 PM

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
As far as I was aware, iTunes 4 is one of the first hybrid Carbon/Cocoa apps.

Do you have any concrete evidence which suggests it is pure Carbon?

The only things I'm aware of where a Carbon app needs to call Cocoa API is spell checking and the font palette. iTunes uses neither.
If it would call into Cocoa, iTunes would need a wrapper bundle for Cocoa. There is no such bundle in the iTunes package.

beb · May 13, 2003, 12:55 AM

What about that whole yellow box for Windows thang.

What I'd like to know is why can't I link my iMac to an Xbox and see photos from the iMac on the Xbox and the same with music.

I wonder what they'll charge for the Windows version. $29.95 with 5 or 10 free downloads? Or does this mean that Marklar will premiere or what.

Graymalkin · May 13, 2003, 05:56 AM

Jeez people. There is little more to iTunes than just a fancy interface on top of the Quicktime framework. It is not hard to imagine a Windows version of iTunes being pretty much the same concept as iTunes on MacOS.

As Quicktime already exists on Windows all Apple needs to do is write a front end that acts similarly to the Mac version of iTunes. There's actually little need to use any of the Carbon code in the Mac version of iTunes. Everything iTunes needs Carbon for on MacOS the Win32 API can provide on Windows.

waffffffle · May 13, 2003, 06:35 AM

iTunes is Carbon. Since iTunes 3 it has been mach-0 Carbon. It is not cocoa.

It is not all QuickTime based. iTunes does it's own mp3 decoding and encoding, independent of QuickTime. The same goes for AIFF, WAV, AAC and a few other formats. iTunes only uses QuickTime to play formats that it can't handle natively. iTunes is not just a fancy interface on QuickTime. The iTunes codebase is based on SoundJam MP (however it has become MUCH more optimized, particularly in terms of OS X CPU usage). This software has been in development for well over four years. Remember that the CD burning burning software was also another product that Apple purchased (I can't remember the name). So that's two full applications that went into iTunes before Apple even started with it.

The iTunes Music Store IS very much QuickTime based. I am surprised that Apple would choose to port all of iTunes to Windows when they could get the store running fairly quickly using QuickTime and stick with musicmatch.

I personally doubt that Apple will get the iTunes port done right in a year. If Apple is actually starting on this right now its going to take them a long time.

Angus_D · May 13, 2003, 06:56 AM

Originally posted by OpenStep:
I installed WebObjects 5.1 onto a spare 2k box and it includes an up to date "Yellow Box for Windows" development suite. It also had stickies.app, textedit.app, and of course the developer tools (project builder.app, interface builder.app)... guess it would be interesting if Apple ever does anything with it.

They won't. It's a really old sucky version of YB, there are no deployment licenses, and it's unlikely Apple would require you to install a 50MB or whatever runtime to use iTunes. It doesn't have any of the changes to Cocoa this side of 2000, AFAIK, and it's probably in maintenance mode. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple moves away from it for WO development at some point, either (in fact plenty of Windows WO users already are, those that haven't ditched WO because of its lack of support by Apple, that is).

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
Do you have any concrete evidence which suggests it is pure Carbon?

[gonzales:~] finlayd% otool -L /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes
/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes:
/usr/lib/libz.1.1.3.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.1.3)
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 60.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon (compatibility version 2.0.0, current version 122.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 120.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickTime.framework/Versions/A/QuickTime (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 171.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/A/vecLib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 135.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/AGL.framework/Versions/A/AGL (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/OpenGL (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreAudio.framework/Versions/A/CoreAudio (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/AudioUnit.framework/Versions/A/AudioUnit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 14.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfiguration (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 53.0.0)

Do you see Cocoa there? It doesn't even link against it.

Originally posted by Developer:
If it would call into Cocoa, iTunes would need a wrapper bundle for Cocoa.

Why would it need a wrapper bundle for Cocoa? That makes no sense.

Angus_D · May 13, 2003, 07:03 AM

Originally posted by waffffffle:
The iTunes Music Store IS very much QuickTime based. I am surprised that Apple would choose to port all of iTunes to Windows when they could get the store running fairly quickly using QuickTime and stick with musicmatch.

Not really following you here... What exactly about iTMS is QT-based? If you mean the content windows in iTunes, then you are very much mistaken, they're HIViews generated on the fly from xml content served by a WebObjects application.

kennethmac2000 · May 13, 2003, 01:42 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Not really following you here... What exactly about iTMS is QT-based? If you mean the content windows in iTunes, then you are very much mistaken, they're HIViews generated on the fly from xml content served by a WebObjects application.

How do you know they're HIViews when, presumably, you haven't seen the source for iTunes?

Developer · May 13, 2003, 02:18 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Why would it need a wrapper bundle for Cocoa? That makes no sense.

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/...section_3.html

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
How do you know they're HIViews when, presumably, you haven't seen the source for iTunes?

I know they are not HIViews. iTunes still runs on 10.1.

Angus_D · May 13, 2003, 02:29 PM

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
How do you know they're HIViews when, presumably, you haven't seen the source for iTunes?

I see iTunes runs on 10.1.5, so it looks like they're not actually HIViews. My mistake

Angus_D · May 13, 2003, 02:32 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/...section_3.html

That's not entirely necessary, only if you wanted 10.1 compatibility, for example. I don't see why you'd need to break it out into a bundle at a sort of fundamental implementation level.

brainchild2b · May 13, 2003, 02:43 PM

Is it so hard for all of you to imagine that apple might just have a real programmer write it as a clean C++ app for windows?

gee, people or so idiotic. Apple will make it nice and clean.

kennethmac2000 · May 13, 2003, 07:56 PM

Does iTunes at least use some form of native widgets now, or is it still using the fake Mac OS X-look widgets that were around since its launch on Mac OS 9?

kmkkid · May 14, 2003, 12:11 AM

Originally posted by beb:
What about that whole yellow box for Windows thang.

What I'd like to know is why can't I link my iMac to an Xbox and see photos from the iMac on the Xbox and the same with music.

I wonder what they'll charge for the Windows version. $29.95 with 5 or 10 free downloads? Or does this mean that Marklar will premiere or what.

You think they'll charge for it? Pffft. They wouldnt make much. There are MANY free alternatives in the music player category. And WMP 9 is to Windows as iTunes is to OS X. I'd imagine the player will be a bare minimum version of itunes with support for the music store.

Chris

sniffer · May 14, 2003, 05:07 AM

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
Does iTunes at least use some form of native widgets now, or is it still using the fake Mac OS X-look widgets that were around since its launch on Mac OS 9?

Afraid soo

Ludovic Hirlimann · May 14, 2003, 08:08 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
addition to the plain C stuff in the bowels).

Itunes has asm for the G4 optimizing in it. But porting that asm to x86 will not be the hardest part. The hardest part will be the port of the itunes helper applications which launches itunes when you plug the ipod in.

Lew · May 14, 2003, 11:00 AM

Doesn't WinXP already have a mechanism for running certain apps when certain hardware is plugged in?

Bobby · May 14, 2003, 11:05 AM

Hey, shouldn't this post be in the software forum???

Grrr · May 14, 2003, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by Bobby:
Hey, shouldn't this post be in the software forum???

Yep

waffffffle · May 14, 2003, 01:48 PM

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
Does iTunes at least use some form of native widgets now, or is it still using the fake Mac OS X-look widgets that were around since its launch on Mac OS 9?

It appears that with each revision of iTunes the program integrates better with the Mac OS X interface. I believe now in version 4 it is finally using the regular metal API instead of its own internal system but I'm not sure about that. It definitely no longer antialiases its own fonts like the OS 9 version does. However a good number of the buttons are still done internally.

ntsc · May 14, 2003, 01:56 PM

my biggest grup about the iTunes interface is the scroll bars. I have my scroll bars set to scroll to where i click and in iTunes this sometime doesn't work at all. It appears that no one else uses this setting since i never hear of anyone complaining about it.

I was kinda hoping that iTunes 4 would fix this but this bugs still there. Why can't they simply build a nib for iTunes, can't you do that with carbon?

dettociao · May 14, 2003, 08:23 PM

Originally posted by direktor:
Vewwy cayfuwwy.

lol

kennethmac2000 · May 15, 2003, 04:39 PM

Originally posted by waffffffle:
I believe now in version 4 it is finally using the regular metal API instead of its own internal system but I'm not sure about that.

Presumably it is given the recessed "traffic light" window widgets.

King Bob On The Cob · May 15, 2003, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by waffffffle:
It appears that with each revision of iTunes the program integrates better with the Mac OS X interface. I believe now in version 4 it is finally using the regular metal API instead of its own internal system but I'm not sure about that. It definitely no longer antialiases its own fonts like the OS 9 version does. However a good number of the buttons are still done internally.

Nope everything is still done internally. (Just went through the .rsrc file) The reason it's not AA anymore is because it font was moved to a 8 point font down from a 9 point font (The default value of AA on Mac OS X carbon apps is 9 unless you change it in the system prefs)

Bobby · May 15, 2003, 05:04 PM

I know how they port it!! You will run the installer and it will say "Error, system is faulty and obsolete. Upgrade to a Mac to continue installation."

JB72 · May 15, 2003, 08:32 PM

I don't know how they'd do it, but I for one would be willing to pay for a Windows version of iTunes. I use a SFF PC for home theater, and being able to browse my music via iTunes on my projected screen would be blissful.

- completely OT & non seq -

* * * GOOOOO LAKERS ! ! ! * * *

Bobby · May 16, 2003, 10:38 AM

Originally posted by JB72:
* * * GOOOOO LAKERS ! ! ! * * * [/B]

****GOOOOO DUCKS ! ! !****

K++ · May 16, 2003, 02:28 PM

Why do you guys think Apple would port one of its Digital Hub apps to windows?

Besides it being incredibly stupid to give them, a great app that acts as an incentive to purchase a mac, it is also ridiculous to think that Apple would port all of iTunes when it clearly said it will port the Music Store. We should all know that the Music Store is not iTunes and a stand alone app can easily be written to do the same thing, this standalone app would probably then use MusicMatch as its preferred player, followed by WinAmp, followed by the System's MP3 player, and concluded with Media Player since we all know Apple doesn't like them.

I have always seen it as Apple building on its partnership with MusicMatch in order to bring the Music Store to windows, all they'd have to do is update QT6 for windows to play the AAC files and then write a MusicMatch codec or plugin so that MusicMatch could also play the AAC files. I say this because I highly doubt that Apple wants to be dragged into using Media Player.

Angus_D · May 16, 2003, 02:45 PM

Originally posted by K++:
Why do you guys think Apple would port one of its Digital Hub apps to windows?

Well, AFAIK MusicMatch Jukebox sucks. Apple wants to sell the iPod to Windows users, and I think iTunes on Windows would be a great way to do that. Not to mention, if it became popular it would be good for Apple's brand recognition - if Windows users see the Apple brand on a regular basis and are left with good impressions, this can only be good for Apple's image and therefore perhaps when they're considering buying a new computer they'll consider Apple if they wouldn't have before. So, it's good both in the short term in terms of the iPod and in long term as far as creating more "switchers" goes, IMO.

it is also ridiculous to think that Apple would port all of iTunes when it clearly said it will port the Music Store.

Well, apart from the fact it can be seen as a logical business decision, they advertised for an "iTunes for Windows" engineer to port iTunes to Windows on Monster.com.

King Bob On The Cob · May 16, 2003, 07:22 PM

Originally posted by K++:
Why do you guys think Apple would port one of its Digital Hub apps to windows?

They're hiring a experienced coder for writing iTunes for Windows. The also promised that iTunes would be on windows before the end of the year. I'm betting they'll just do what they did with Quicktime, use the Carbon API's they ported over to Windows to get a quick port out and slowly rewrite it to make it quicker.

Angus_D · May 17, 2003, 05:37 AM

Originally posted by King Bob On The Cob:
[BThe also promised that iTunes would be on windows before the end of the year.[/B]

No, they didn't. They promised the Music Store for Windows by the end of the year.

I'm betting they'll just do what they did with Quicktime, use the Carbon API's they ported over to Windows to get a quick port out and slowly rewrite it to make it quicker.

AFAIK they didn't port the higher levels of Carbon to Win32, just some bits, and the QT GUI is all native Win32 code.

King Bob On The Cob · May 18, 2003, 01:32 AM

http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob....tware+Engineer

Again, They specifically mention 'We are looking for someone to write "iTunes for Windows"'

a holck · May 18, 2003, 11:21 AM

Quote:
Required skills include C, C++, UI, MFC, Win32, COM, DirectX, Installshield and application engineering. Exposure to networking and device drivers a plus.

QuickTime API is not mentioned!
WIN32 and DirectX is.

JLL · May 18, 2003, 12:40 PM

Originally posted by a holck:
Quote:
Required skills include C, C++, UI, MFC, Win32, COM, DirectX, Installshield and application engineering. Exposure to networking and device drivers a plus.

QuickTime API is not mentioned!
WIN32 and DirectX is.

Um, it's probably better to get people that know how to program Windows apps generally than people who know the QT API in and out.

moki · May 19, 2003, 02:40 AM

Originally posted by Ludovic Hirlimann:
Itunes has asm for the G4 optimizing in it.

nah -- there's little to no reason to use asm when doing altivec coding -- you simply use the AltiVec intrinsics in C/C++/Objective C. eg:

ourVec = vec_ld(0, screenVec++);
ourVec = vec_or(ourVec, alphaMask);

AltiVec is actually quite easy (and fun) to code.

rmendis · May 20, 2003, 01:19 AM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
They won't. It's a really old sucky version of YB, there are no deployment licenses, and it's unlikely Apple would require you to install a 50MB or whatever runtime to use iTunes. It doesn't have any of the changes to Cocoa this side of 2000, AFAIK, and it's probably in maintenance mode.

Yes, this is a shame.
Apple has at its disposal tools that would make Mac OS X more attractive in the enterprise market. Namely Cocoa.

Now that Yellow Box/Cocoa is no longer dependent on DisplayPostscript and uses Quartz an entirely Apple owned technology, perhaps the licensing fee for the run-time environment will be moot?

Cocoa will certainly make a very attractive cross platform development environment and it may be an additional incentive to get developers to write Cocoa apps - so that they can deploy on Mac OS X as well as Windows.

Also, if i remember correctly, the idea for Carbon sprung from the subset of the Mac Toolbox that was ported to Windows in order to make the QuickTime Windows Player. Carbon, i imagine is more full featured that what the QuickTime Windows Player uses, but perhaps Apple may choose to go that route.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple moves away from it for WO development at some point, either (in fact plenty of Windows WO users already are, those that haven't ditched WO because of its lack of support by Apple, that is).

Yes, this is a shame.

IMHO, it's because of the lack of support on Windows (for the developer) that developers appear to be moving away from WebObjects.
Now to develop WebObjects one really needs to purchase Macs in addition to the software license...let alone learn a new architecture.

Apple has two options:
1. If Apple does plan to release a Cocoa development environment for Windows, then Apple could stick with it's current toolset.

2. Partner with a Windows Java IDE vendor for the Windows developer version of WebObjects.

Personally i'd prefer the second, as it really offers greater flexibility to the WebObjects developer.

Angus_D · May 20, 2003, 05:31 AM

Originally posted by rmendis:
IMHO, it's because of the lack of support on Windows (for the developer) that developers appear to be moving away from WebObjects.

Herein the UK, it's the lack of support for WebObjects that is causing developers to move away from WebObjects. I was having a chat with one of Apple's (former) enterprise partners, who have some of the most highly qualified WO engineers around, and they're giving up because Apple refuses to talk to them and continues to make boneheaded decisions. Lots of Apple's enterprise WO clients are moving away from it, too. It's a crying shame, WO is some nice technology, but Apple doesn't have a fscking clue how to do the enterprise thing.

rmendis · May 20, 2003, 11:41 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
...and they're giving up because Apple refuses to talk to them and continues to make boneheaded decisions.

I know

Though it really only applies to the iServices group in UK. The german and french teams have their heads on their shoulders.

I worked for Apple (iServices) UK as a WebObjects Developer. The enterprise partner you are refering to doesn't happen to be AMS? (I worked for them too).