Advenio has announced a Transition Service to create Universal Binaries for developers:
With the recent announcement of Intel-based Macintosh computers many developers, particularly smaller shops, are left with the question of how to ensure that their applications will operate properly on the new machines. The last thing any developer wants is to have a potential customer download their application only to find it doesn’t run on their particular computer. While Rosetta may indeed do the work for you dynamically at runtime, do you really want to bank on it?
Apple has decided that only ADC Select and Premier members will have access to the Transition Kit. While Advenio qualifies, we know many of the 500,000 registered developers do not. Even those developers who do qualify may find the price a bit steep. One thousand dollars to perform a task that make take only a few hours. Add to that the fact that you must return the machine by next June.
Advenio is offering a Transition Service starting at just $100 (10% of the cost of the Transition Kit from Apple). We’ll enter an NDA with your company, you provide a working Xcode build, we perform the port and issue you full details of the changes and provide a Universal Binary of your application.
More info here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
MAXON announces Cinema4D Universal Binary for Apple ‘Macintel’ and PowerPC Macs – June 08, 2005
Apple posts $999 ‘Developer Transition Kit’ hardware and software information – June 07, 2005
Apple to use Intel microprocessors beginning in 2006, all Macs to be Intel-based by end of 2007 – June 06, 2005
I am not a programmer, so could someone please give a concise explanation for what exactly a binay does? There is a lot of discussion of binaries and the trasition, and I would like to be able to put this in some kind of context.
Thanks
Crit,
I don’t know much about binaries, etc. either, but, I am very excited about what is happening with Apple’s move to Intel. My sense for several years has been that the Motorola/Freexxx?/IBM processors were a dead end street. It just did not seem right, didn’t seem that they were really committed to the Mac’s (i.e., OS X) processor needs for the long term.
Good things are in store…
MDN Majic Word – “and”, as in Mac and Intel = POWER to the future!
Critic wrote: “I am not a programmer, so could someone please give a concise explanation for what exactly a binay does? There is a lot of discussion of binaries and the trasition, and I would like to be able to put this in some kind of context.”
In the context used, a “binary” is a program file… Program files are all either binaries (self contained programs, software libraries, etc.), or text files (scripts).
Generally speaking, if one authors a computer program, they use a programming language such as C, C++, C#, or one of hundreds of other languages. Once they have completed the program, assuming the syntax (rules of the languages structure, aka effectively it’s PROPER grammer), it would then be “compiled” into a binary using a compiler program.
The compiler program then adds instructions to the resulting “binary” that make it work on the system it is being built for… Modern computer Operating Systems provide extensive lists of libraries (APIs, or Application Programming Interface), which provide functionality for the program binary, so the developer only has to worry about the library’s needed (some compilers can do this part “on the fly”), and doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel everytime they write their program.
By the way, those libraries (APIs), and all the other programs are all binaries… A program this is not compiled, but rather interpreted (it is read line for line, in sequence, and orders, calls, etc. other programs to do things via some form of interface is called a script. BInanries are smaller, more condensed and there is no need for interpretation (translation from script text to computer code. That means a binary is more efficient, but also obviously less flexible.
I hope that helped you understand better.
The term “binary” is another way of saying “executable” or “application”. It’s tied to the processor. A binary can only run on a particular kind of processor, in this case PPC or x86. When a developer “compiles”, their programming code becomes a binary for a particular processor. If code is written properly it can be compiled for multiple processors all in one shot.
That still leaves two different binaries though. Two different application files. A Universal binary is a single file that contains both binaries inside it and when the user double-clicks on it, the OS knows which one to run.
That is what the new Xcode 2.1 will do. It will compile the code for both PPC and x86 and wrap them together into a single application icon.
Ah the spirit of entrepreneurship! Change = opportunity. Good to see this happening. I hope we can make the transition without losing any developers and things like this will help a lot.
Zepp…I was in the dark on that, too
The explanation helps a lot.
“Could someone please give a concise explanation for what exactly a binary does?”
Programmers write instructions to computers in text that looks like a combination of English and mathematics.
Compilers take this text and convert it into numbers, which is all that computer CPUs can understand. The CPU reads a numerical instruction, acts on it, reads the next instruction, acts on it, etc.
Different CPUs use different numerical languages to do their stuff. It’s as if some CPUs work in English and others in French. Well, IBM’s PowerPC CPUs use a different language from all of Intel’s Pentium CPUs.
Binaries (or sets of binary numbers) is what numerical computer instructions are called, because the numbers they use are just zero and one for simplicity (the so-called binary numbers).
Apple’s Xcode acts like a compiler and can turn the programmers instructions into either PowerPC binary instructions or Pentium binary instructions or BOTH. If it does both, then you have what Jobs calls universal binaries able to be used on both PowerPC and Pentium Macintoshes.
This is very much simplified but I hope it helps.
This company is offering to take a program for a PowerPC CPU, written in the programmer’s text, and create (compile to) Pentium CPU binaries using Xcode 2.1. Only some of the developers will be able to get Xcode 2.1 AND the development-only Intel-based Macs, so those who don’t get the special Macs can’t run and test the resulting binary code. This company will do the compiling for them. The code remains untested as far as I can see.
slowly but surely, all the ideas that detractors of the apple/intel relationship build their arguements upon are becoming unraveled….what a great time to support apple.
Bob C–
I like the whole English/French analogy.
To take that further, writing sloppy is like speaking with an indiscernible accent. LOL
MW: now–As in, the time that in the future, we will all be looking back on, as when the marketshare began to crumble away from Microsoft.
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Thanks for the explanation, it does help.
Is it safe to assume then that a universal binary would result in a much larger (2x) file size?
Steve wasn’t clear on the nature of the “Universal Binary” — it sounded to me like the compiler would create two SEPARATE installs, and the *installer* would detect & determine which to install. So double the space on your distribution media, but just one or the other actually isntalled on the Mac?
Does that sound right to anyone?
No crit it does not mean double the file size. Only a portion of the code will need to be duplicated. In any program that has been compiled into binary format there is a certain percentage that deals with the processor. Other parts of the program contain data, orders of instructions etc. Only the bits that need to know about the processor will be duplicated to cope with diffeerences between processors.
Some tools now will allow you to compile your C++ program into specific G4 and/or G5 versions that are optimised for each or just run generally on each. Depending on the options you take, different file sizes are produced, but not double. It is exactly the same. The differences between G4 and G5 are not as great as PPC and Intel but the same principle holds true.
MW Sense as in it makes sense to stick with Apple for the best systems.
I assumed separate installs, and that the additional file space required would be on the media.
This would definitely mean a switch to HD DVD media. I think we will see the Blu-Ray drives as standard real soon if this is the case
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