“Macintosh users have long waited for the day when Windows-only applications such as AutoCAD, Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio would run on an Apple machine. ‘Those are really the three big applications … that are missing on the Mac,’ said Scott Michaels, director of professional services for Atimi Software, a cross-platform development company based in Vancouver, British Columbia,” Steve Bryant reports for eWeek. “But while Apple is explicitly endorsing the use of Windows with its Boot Camp software, the company won’t be supporting the software. And it looks like major creative software vendors don’t yet have plans to test their software on Intel-based Macs running Boot Camp.”
“A spokesperson at Autodesk, in San Rafael, Calif., said that support questions haven’t been settled. ‘This just happened the other day; it’s too soon to tell,’ the spokesperson said,” Bryant reports.
Full article here.
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With native drivers, can’t imagine it wouldn’t work.
If Autodesk wasn’t a bunch of lazy hacks we would still have a Mac version. They are only interested in milking the building industry. AutoCAD is an incredibly retarded application that only exists because it is the standard. Just like the OS it runs on. Crap.
fühk Autodesk.
San Rafael? wooo hooo! I was born there .. and I always thought everything was too soon to tell, too. heh
tHE dUDE
My sentiments exzctly…
A Mac running AutoCAD under Windows is just a PC running AutoCAD. Really no difference.
And AutoCAD really is crap. Check out this site.
http://www.architosh.com/
Maybe I’m ignorant, but what are “project” and “visio”? I haven’t missed them at all.
Andrew
Whether AutoCAD is crap or not is irrelevant. It’s the industry standard. Try saying “Photoshop is crap, I use Foto-Shoppe it’s much better”, or “I don’t use Flash I use Blink it’s better,” and getting a job from someone in the design industry.
I hope AutoCAD works perfectly fine on a Mac, then there’s NO WAY my wife is getting a new PC
Is there any reason it shouldn’t run? I mean unless there’s something that Apple isn’t telling us about the hardware, it isn’t much different from most of the x86 based hardware out there, although it is arguably of better build quality, but that shouldn’t cause problems.
I think this is just them covering their asses or waiting to get permission from MS to admit that it should work just fine. And what the hell does that mean, this only just happened? As if they can’t get to an Apple store, buy an imac, download boot camp, install windows and launch auto cad in a single afternoon? Test time: 3 hours (less if they know what the hell their doing) Test cost: maybe 1800 if they get the fast 20″ imac and don’t have a bazillion copies of windows lying around.
AutoCAD.
Funny.
It is the Microsoft of the CAD world.
ArchiCAD is the application.
And they’ve been Mac since day one.
In every other country they are the industry standard.
I don’t use AutoCad but everyone i speak to that does says it’s a crap application and they only use it because it’s the ‘standard’ and ‘everyone’ uses it.
Just like Windows, there needs to be someone to come along and wipe it out and replace it with a superior product.
Interesting.
“It’s too soon to tell” if running a Windows program on a Windows OS will be supported by the company that created that program to ONLY run in that Windows environment or not just because it’s running on a machine with an Intel chip and instead of hundreds of other names (like Dell, Sony, etc.) just happens to have the name “Apple” stamped on it instead?
Such forward thinking folks. Hmph.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”blank stare” style=”border:0;” /> This should be such a no-brainer.
And, even if there aren’t any “official” plans – you know they’re starting to get the phone calls and e-mails (and links to stories like this) and chats in the hallways and on the sidewalks – the fact that they have no “plans” certainly doesn’t mean they’re not going to throw a couple of people in front of a few Intel Macs and see what happens (if they haven’t already).
Steve Bryant says that AutoCAD, Visio and Project “are really the big 3 applications…that are missing on the Mac”. I agree with him about AutoCAD because, like others say above, it’s the industry standard. Even if it’s not the best, it is needed. However, Visio and Project? Come on now, those are crap apps if I’ve ever used one. They’re not really “industry standard” because they are used in multiple industries. Anyone can get along without them. Hell, I have a hard enough time getting along with the Pig they call Project. What a slug of an app! I think that there are other apps out there that are missed more on the Mac than those 2 apps.
Big problem Apple CAD/CAM/3D users have is access to high end video cards.
Before it was the AGP slot, but now it’s the drivers.
We have many users of Project and Visio here, but we shouldn’t forget MS Access. People here have built many apps using Access. Unfortunately, there’s no counterpart even within Office for Mac. Is there a reason Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit has never released Access for Mac? Can someone suggest an alternative that our developers and users would accept?
Peter J,
AutoCAD may be the default “standard” in the industry, but it can still be crap. There are much, much better apps out there for the same use — some of which have been available for over 15y years. It is no different than saying the Windows OS is crap. It may be the industry standard, but we can still say, truthfully, that it is absolutely a “sub”standard! (all puns intended)
I know designers who are still running Release 12 because they lost functionality and speed when they tried to go to the newer versions. In fact, I know of a designer who has done artificial heart designs (was the lead mechanical engineer on the Jarvik 7 and has worked on others) and satellite designs (remember NEAR — he did the original designs for that, among several others) who is so much more efficient using release 12 that when in a recent consulting meeting he had a disagreement with the mechanical design team over the practicality of changing their design (the in-house team claimed it would take a few weeks for several people to make the changes throughout all drawings) he asked for a DVD of all the relevant drawings. He went home to his release 12 machine, loaded in the drawings and came back in under 4 hours with all changes made (including drive time and time to load the drawings into his system). He admitted to me that if he had tried to use the most recent version of AutoCAD it would have taken him several weeks to do the same thing. Why would anyone use software which reduces productivity so radically with new releases?
And as for AutoCAD on the Mac, it failed miserably on the Mac for one very simple reason: Autodesk took the DOS version of AutoCAD and ran it inside a single window on the Mac while delivering a version that used multiple windows on the DOS/Windows 3.0 platform. Clearly no AutoCAD user was going to go back to the purely text/line interface inside a single window on a Mac when a clearly superior version was available on DOS/Windows 3.0.
Autodesk has *NEVER* been truly interested in supporting Macintosh. I doubt they will ever put much effort into testing it on Apple hardware even if Apple starts selling Windows pre-installed on Macs (which I hope they never do).
Personally, I use VectorWorks when I have to do any CAD work. While it is more architectural focussed than I ever am, it is still the best for what I do.
Comparing AutoCAD to crap is a little harsh.
Crap isn’t that bad.
AutoCAD – Software that makes windows look well written.
Screw Autodesk and AutoCAD…
SolidWorks is where its at.
Jimbo.
Your comment was interesting
I’ll rewrite the list of needed apps on the mac: Project, Visio, AutoCAD, Access and Outlook (MS dump Entourage pleeeease). Realistically however I don’t see a mac version of any of these in the near future.
MS Project actually is an outstading piece of software. I truly believe it is one of the very few solid products from MS. It has a wealth of functionality and I have never seen anyone using anything other than it for project management. That’s coming from someone who has come across many project managers. It is the standard in multiple industries, independent professionals, and conferences.
At my previous work we were regrettably forced to use Visio for drawing our software and data flow diagrams for our documentation. We probably didn’t use all the features, but it never struck me as much more than MacDraw with connect points on the figure boundaries.
But there is one other Windows-only app which is an industry standard which I’d like to see on the Mac: AGI’s Satellite Toolkit. Fairly powerful aerospace visualization and analysis software. A number of animations you may see on the news with satellites in flight or the Shuttle landing are done in STK. Considering the software was originally developed under Unix before it went Windows-only, I’d love to see a Mac native version. For now I’m trying to bamboozle, er, talk AGI into giving me a license for their Advanced Visualization Option so I can test it under Boot Camp for them…
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I have it installed and it runs just as crappy on the Mac as it does on a PeeCee
Project and Visio??? Come on….
AutoCAD it’s all about the .dwg format.If you can read and write in .dwg you wont miss that “standard” crpa. To deal with that you have the far superior Vectorworks 12 under the Macintosh.
About microsoft access, who wants that crap if you have 4D and even Filemaker??? Bhaaaaa. Still laughting about Project and Vision “standards” lol.
AutoCAD is NOT the standard, just like Microsoft Word is NOT the standard. The applications can’t be the standard. The standard is the proprietary formats these applications use. DWG and DOC are standards. Other apps try to reverse engineer them, but Autodesk and Microsoft are notorious for making small changes to them to keep outside apps at a disadvantage. This is why I believe Apple needs to support open standards. ODF is an OASIS-backed standard for office apps. Apple would be smart to make Pages and Keynote work with this format. The state of Massachusetts has already “standardized” on this and Minnesota is now leaning heavily towards it as well.
“Raymond from DC” asked: “Can someone suggest an alternative [to MS Access] that our developers and users would accept?”
FileMaker Pro 8, but whether your developers and users would accept it is another story. Since it’s not a Microsoft product, it often gets overlooked, but it allows simultaneous cross-platform access and does a good job of balancing ease of use with programmability and power-user features.
We use Vectorworks and it’s awesome!!!!