FAQs

Business Questions

1. Why should I enter the Apple market?

The Mac PC market is growing at an astounding rate. They have 17% of the laptop market. (ChangeWave survey, InfoWorld August 2007) They are third in overall PC sales at 8.1%, representing 37.2% growth year-over year. (AppleInsider October 07) Apple is sure to take a solid 10% of the PC market within the next year.

The recent success of Apple Inc., is attributed to the astonishing popularity of iTunes and the iPod. An estimated 80% of all music is downloaded from the Internet is downloaded from the iTunes site (Guardian Sept 2006). As Apple expands to selling TV shows and movies via this portal, profits will increase dramatically. The iPod also has 82% of the portable music player market. (Bloomberg, Jan 2007).

With the release of their latest product-the iPhone, a product that's believed to be the most noteworthy invention since the first home computer-it's not difficult to forecast that this will further escalate the success of Mac personal computers.

Now's the time build a multi-platform software product, or port your PC product to the Mac.

2. What benefits will it have for my product or service?

You will increase revenue and your product will have a higher value perception.

The additional market share will instantly increase revenue. This strategic move may provide long-term security. Mac users are loyal and the Mac market is growing at a substantial rate.

With a cross-platform product, your customers will have the flexibility of choosing platforms and your product will be supported on the number 1 platform for customer satisfaction: "On a scale of 1 to 10...our respondents rated more than half of the Macs at 10; 85 percent earned a 9 or a 10." (Macworld, May 22)

3. When should I make my Mac version available?

Mac OS X Leopard was just released at the end of October. In the first weekend, they sold over 2 million copies--about 9% of the 23-million Mac user base immediately upgraded to Leopard. (www.cbronline.com October 31 2007)

A patch was released on November 15th to improve security. Now the software is stable and the rest of the user base is migrating to Leopard. You want to make your software available on Leopard as soon as possible.

4. How should I port my product to the Mac?

There are basically three ways to approach development of your Mac software product:

You can train your existing development group on Mac coding, and release your product in a year or so.
You can hire independent contractors who are already experienced with OS X, and try to get your product out in the next six months.
Or you can hire an experienced team of Mac software developers. The Atimi team includes developers, a QA team, and a project manager. With their experience and teamwork, they can get your product to market on time and on budget.

5. Who will test my Mac product?

One of the major benefits of the Mac platform is that you only have to test your product on Mac hardware with Mac OS X. But you do need someone with Mac testing experience.

Rely on the highly-experienced Atimi QA team to ensure your product is stable and fully-functional.

6. Does Apple promote third-party products?

ADC Business and Marketing programs provide developers with a comprehensive framework for marketing new products. This program includes Marketing Program and Advertising Packages for MacWorld, as well as promotional opportunities, channel programs, discounted services, and other valuable resources. (http://developer.apple.com/business/index.html)

Technical Questions

1. Describe the Mac architecture.

The Apple Developer Connection (ADC) site has complete information on Apple architecture.

http://developer.apple.com/macosx/architecture/index.html

If you're not an ADC member already, you'll need to complete registration at ADC Member Site.

2. What development tools can I use on the Mac?

Mac OS X supports UNIX, Java, the proprietary Cocoa and Carbon runtime environments, and a host of open source, web, scripting, database, and development technologies.

3. I plan to localize my products for global markets. Is it a good idea to localize on the Mac? How complicated is it to localize Mac software?

Macs are gaining momentum in international markets. Studies show that over half of Mac computer sales have been outside of the US (International Herald Tribune, October 2007). Plus the development tools provided for OS X make localization easier to implement on Macs.

There are a vast number software tools available for implementing localization on Mac OS X. “You can choose from a suite of international technologies that handle text systems used around the world and conversion utilities that manage locales, dates, and measurement systems in a consistent manner.” (developer.apple.com)

Mac OS X is available in the following languages:

Chinese (Simplified)	Chinese (Traditional)	Czech
Danish	Dutch	English (United States)
Finnish	French	French (Canada)
German	Icelandic	Italian
Japanese	Korean	Norwegian
Polish	Portuguese (Brazil)	Portuguese (Portugal)
Russian	Spanish (Spain)	Spanish (Mexico & Latin America)
Swedish

Mac OS X natively supports Roman, Japanese, Semitic, Chinese, Indic, and other languages. APIs provide support for additional languages.

4. Is the OS X development environment stable?

Yes. The UNIX foundation provides a stable, powerful environment for software development.

5. Is the OS X development environment suitable for cross-platform technologies?

Mac OS X development environment has a UNIX foundation, and includes native application environments, Java, leading-edge development tools, and support for open source and open standards. This makes it suitable for UNIX, PC as well as Mac deployments.

For details, go to the ADC site: http://developer.apple.com/macosx/introdevtech.html.

6. How much does it cost for a developer's license?

It costs US$499 to become an Apple Developer Connection (ADC) Select Member, and $3499 to become an ADC Premier Member. This includes the cost of all software development tools and documentation, discounts on Apple hardware, and access to technical support and test environments.

7. I'm thinking about running Windows apps using Boot Camp. Are Windows applications stable on Macs?

I am currently running Boot Camp. (The beta version. I haven't updated to Leopard yet.) For Windows I am running Vista Business Edition, with Office 2007 Enterprise Edition, as well as various development tools.

My experience is that this is absolutely stable, as it is running under Windows.

The only difficulties I find are that:

The keyboard is Mac-centric, and you have to get used to the differences
I partitioned my drive into two equal parts-one for Mac OS X, the other for Boot Camp/Windows. I now wish I had given the majority to Windows, but I can't repartition it now.
Every once in a blue moon, the keyboard/mouse hangs and I am forced to do a hard reboot. This is not a Vista issue (I run the same version of Windows at home on my PC and I never get this error), so I suspect it is an issue with the Boot Camp drivers.

Overall, two thumbs up, but you should think about these issues.