For the past months, Peter Bright, a former Win32 Programmer, has given a in-depth overview to the perspective of being a developer for Win32 and for Cocoa. Part one in the series described how misfortune and adversity left Apple with a new OS platform free of legacy constraints; part two discussed how Microsoft had failed to do the same, choosing instead to hobble its new OS with way too much legacy baggage. Now in the third part, Peter exposes in detail what Apple has done with its platform to make it so appealing.

The series is a very interesting read, even if you’re not into Cocoa development, as it explains just why Mac OS X offers so many advances to a normal Developer – especially compared to Win32. If you haven’t read the other parts yet, it’d be wise to start at the beginning before you start to read part three.

When it comes down to feature-richness in UI Libraries Cocoa really shines. Especially the 10.5 bump, bringing Core Animation to the table, really extended the graphicall capabilities of Cocoa. The Windows Vista pendant, “Avalon”, for example, offers a wide set of features just as well, but still lacks a extensive integrated animation package (apart from many other smaller details).
Avalon however, just as well as Cocoa, is bound to the underlying operating system and thus not available for other platforms.

So if one intends to write a multiplatform graphically extensive application, one either has to write seperate backends for each operating system, or use a agnostic framework, like for example Trolltech’s Qt or the open source Clutter.

Clutter has a lot to offer:

• OpenGL / OpenGL ES compatible
• 2D Layered scenes with possible 3D transformations
• Built-in Effects and Filters
• Media Playback
• WebKit Support, meaning one can mix WebKit with UI Elements just as with Cocoa
• Built-In Animation engine, much like Core Animation (albeit less powerfull)
• Linux, Windows, MacOSX and even iPhone Support
• Written in C, bindings for Perl, Python, C#, C++, Vala and Ruby

And much more. As you can see, Clutter has a lot to offer. It’s still at version 0.6.2, so maybe not yet ready for production use. However, if you’re thinking about developing a graphically extensive application that has to be deployed to several platforms at the same time, including iPhone, Clutter could come to the rescue.

Microsoft released its latest revision of the Windows OS on January 30th, 2007 to great fanfare. Even after a year and a half of beta testing, Windows Vista still suffered a few opening day hiccups.

Right out of the box you can see that once installed, Vista looks a lot like a certain other operating system on the market that features widgets and an extremely user-friendly interface. Indeed, Vista’s AERO interface does look, and feel, like Mac OS X’s Aqua interface. Whereas AERO, which invokes images of “air” has a glass-like presence, Aqua naturally invokes a watery feel to it.

Speaking of AERO, to get the full Vista Experience, including AERO, you have to buy one of the more expensive versions of the OS. Unlike XP, which had two versions, Vista comes in a total of six versions. The versions depend on the market in which the OS is being sold. The Vista Starter Edition will not be sold in the US, but only to so-called “emerging markets.”

In the US, there’s Home Basic, Home Premium, and Vista Ultimate for the normal “home” user. For business, there’s Vista Business and Vista Enterprise. In the European Union, there’s the “N” series of Vista that does not feature Windows Media Player 11 due to certain anti-trust laws in those regions.

The possibility of further anti-trust lawsuits looms closer everyday as several software manufacturers have been pushed by the wayside, as Vista already includes programs similar to, or identical several other offerings.

First and foremost is Windows Defender, an anti-spyware tool. Anti-spyware has long been the domain of companies such as McAfee and Symantec, but now, not only has Microsoft beaten them to the punch, until Symantec released Norton Internet Security suite 7, it was incompatible with Vista due to a scripting error in Internet Explorer 7. Again, Vista comes preinstalled with a firewall, well, there goes Symantec’s offering.

Windows Vista also comes with the capability to burn DVDs right out of the box. Doesn’t Nero does that?

In the end, it seems as though Microsoft is slowly trying to bully software developers out of business.

In the past, various companies have released free, ad-supported versions of their software to differing degrees of success (such as Opera’s web browser). The Febuary 2006 issue of Smart Computing mentions an internal memo from Microsoft that hints at the possibility of them releasing ad-supported versions of some their most popular software.

Clearly mentioned in the article were Windows, Works, and Money. No mention of Office, which Microsoft is alleged to be developing for Web use. It would be interesting to see where Microsoft goes with this, particualarly on the free version of their Windows XP operating system. Odds are that it will feature rotating ads on the desktop or random pop-up ads that can’t be turned off.

I just tried this application recently (they offer a downloadable trial). It’s awesome, offers great usability and, if you’re a bit comfortable with 3D / game stuff, allows to create games in a blaze.

http://otee.dk/