

Ballmer to announce VS 2010 will compile native Mac/iPhone apps at WWDC - cletus
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/27/ballmer_wwdc/

======
DrJokepu
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised by the responses in this thread. The rumour
might be true or false but that's not what I find surprising.

Are there technical problems regarding the rumour? There are, certainly.
However, we developers know that technical problems can be solved and Apple
and Microsoft certainly have the resources to do so.

Are there business issues? Is this an unexpected move? Certainly, it is. But
Apple has a history of unexpected business moves and business innovation, as
does Microsoft even if it is uncool to acknowledge that.

Even if the rumour is false (I don't know) I don't find it unbelievable at
all, because (a) it makes sense (b) this move would be both typically "Apple"
and typically "Microsoft", if you look at the history of these companies.
Hell, Microsoft _started_ as a programming tool company.

~~~
nw
I dare say Microsoft has the best IDE out there.

~~~
malkia
It does, as it works for a lot of people just fine, but it's not without it's
quirks.

Some things that are better in XCode: filtering of options, error bubbles,
keyboard mappings.

Some things that are better in MSVC: Debugging! Maybe because I had to use
MSVC for the last 10 years, and I'm so used to it. XCode is also not bad, but
would need more time adjusting to the keyboard shortcuts

~~~
nitrogen
Some things that are better in Eclipse: refactorings. Adding method
parameters, changing their order, extracting methods, promoting or demoting
classes, etc. At least when it comes to Java, Eclipse seems to have more
options and a greater success rate than VS2008 with C#.

Debugging Java with Eclipse is about the same as debugging C# with VS in my
experience, though it seems that VS's output console is slower than Eclipse's,
and both are slower than a pure terminal.

~~~
malbs
I have to use both Eclipse and VS2k3/VS2k8/VS2k10 on a daily basis. Sure,
eclipse has better refactorings. I would also argue that it's
References/Declarations search features are better than the VS equivelents.

But that is the only two features where VS gets eclipsed. VS is an all-round
better tool than Eclipse for everything else I need to do. Sure perhaps I can
make Eclipse better by searching out some plugin written by some 3rd party,
because the 3rd party support/community is better for Eclipse than VS. But
from a daily use POV, atleast IMO, VS is simply leaps and bounds beyond
Eclipse. VS also cost me $1000, Eclipse didn't cost me anything. So perhaps my
view is skewed simply because I'm deluding myself because of my financial
outlay, but I'd like to think not.

------
raganwald
So... Is this one reporter tossing his speculation on top of another
reporter's speculation? And now leading to us speculating about his
speculation??

I'm honestly amazed we are falling for this. It's exactly the same thing I see
every holiday season at the grocery-store checkout: "Psychic reveals which
star will die of a drug overdose this year, who is going to get married, and
why a giant earthquake is going to flatten Toronto." It's a simple game that
delights the rubes. Make a lot of guesses, take credit for the ones you got
right last year, and hand wave the ones that didn't come true.

How is this any different?

p.s. Here's a suggestion: Create a poll asking HNers to vote on which wild-
assed-guess is going to come true and keep all the talk of vapourware in one
place!

------
statictype
At first blush, I dismissed it for violating 3.3.1, but now that I think of
it, you're allowed to use Objective-C, C or C++. Visual Studio already has a
C/C++ compiler so they don't even need to introduce a new language into the
mix.

And since it looks like Apple is betting the company on the iPhone/iPad (as
opposed to Mac OS X) there's no real downside to letting developers on non-OSX
platforms build iPhone apps.

You would still need the $99 Developer License to load apps onto the device.
And Apple gives Xcode away for free so they're not losing money on allowing
competing development tools.

I still don't think this announcement is going to happen, but it's not the
most outrageous thing that could happen.

If anything its more likely that Microsoft would reject such an idea than
Apple.

~~~
rbanffy
> there's no real downside to letting developers on non-OSX platforms build
> iPhone apps.

To fully enjoy network effects you need to control the whole stack. This is
the problem with this rumor: Jobs may be anything but he's not suicidal.

Allowing iTunes to run on Windows helped increase sales of iPods and music and
preventing those who already had PCs running Windows to considering the
competition.

Allowing VS2010 to target iPhone/iPod/iPad would increase the number of
developers who could develop for the platform, something that I don't think
Apple really needs.

If nothing else, Apple could raise the bar on apps a bit. This would only
lower it.

~~~
stcredzero
_If nothing else, Apple could raise the bar on apps a bit. This would only
lower it._

On the contrary, if Apple had more apps to choose from, then it could afford
to be more selective. The only thing is that they're _already_ in a position
to be more selective, and they're clearly not! (Perhaps too much work.)

~~~
rbanffy
You haven't seen many WinMo apps lately, have you?

~~~
stcredzero
To borrow a phrase from the Borg: WinMo is irrelevant.

~~~
rbanffy
That's the point. Apple doesn't need WinMo developers porting their apps to
iPhone because a) they are terrible, b) there are not many of them and c) the
important/interesting ones are already ported

~~~
stcredzero
Who said anything about WinMo apps? Mindshare is the valuable thing!

------
xpaulbettsx
This doesn't even pass the giggle test from a technical perspective -
iPad/iPhone is so massively tied to the Mac platform, how could you ever write
any sort of meaningful integration with VS2010. You'd have to port all of the
UIKit/CoreFoundation libraries over, you'd have to make a Windows version of
the iPhone Simulator, you'd have to write a Objective-C compiler from scratch
(remember, Microsoft would never ship GCC), that was _compatible_ with GCC,
the list goes on and on.

Now, maybe he's announcing a compatible version of Silverlight, or a way to
compile SL applications to iPhone/iPad, which makes _far_ more sense, and
would be very compelling for developers. From one codebase, you could have a
rich website, a desktop app, a WinPhone7 app, and an iPhone/iPad app, and you
could write that app in C#, VB, Python or Ruby. _That'd_ be awesome.

~~~
vinayak
Honestly that is FUD. Microsoft did ship GCC with SFU 3.5 (See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_Services_for_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_Services_for_UNIX#SFU_3.5))
How do I know ? I worked on it.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
That was before GCC switched to GPLv3. However, the point is moot as someone
else mentioned Clang, which I could see MS shipping. I did forget about SFU
though, good point.

------
andreyf
This makes perfect sense, at least from my anecdotal experience: there are
tons of people who want to develop for the App Store but don't want to spend
thousands to buy a new computer running OSX to do it. At this point, a
developer who doesn't have an Apple laptop isn't likely to get one, so there
are few hardware sales to lose, but a lot to win by letting Windows-based
developers make apps for iP*s.

~~~
roc
So the Windows coders who balk at a several hundred dollar 'Apple tax' are
going to instead shell out several hundred dollars for a VS2010 license?

Or is the theory that Microsoft would let a feature like this wind up in
Express when their own tools to develop for Windows Mobile are only available
in vs2010 licenses that cost _more_ than a macbook and app store license
combined?

EDIT: Which isn't to say that it won't or couldn't be plausible. But if it
_does_ happen, it will be all about enterprises: The sorts of places that
wouldn't blink at the _cost_ of a Mac, but would balk at having to train,
staff and support a completely different toolchain and environment.

~~~
doty
Actually, Windows Phone 7 tools come in an express edition, so it wouldn't be
too strange for the iPhone version to come in an express SKU.

(Tools available from <http://developer.windowsphone.com/>)

But the tax is more like a thousand dollar tax, as it requires buying a Mac.
(Is a Mac mini a reasonable development machine for the iphone?)

~~~
tjarratt
The mac mini is more than a reasonable machine for development. I use it for
gaming, design work in CS4 and development, when I don't feel like using my
laptop.

That would mean that the 'tax' is only $500, or cheaper if you get it
refurbished.

------
latch
No way.

Why would MS drive more consumers to the iphone only to retain developers?
Consumers outnumber developers, what? 10000:1? Also, what signal would MS be
sending to its developers about its own future platform.

More likely is some native office apps, bing search integration, and maybe
silverlight news for MacOS.

~~~
lftl
I'm not saying you're wrong about this announcement, but honestly I see MS's
strongest position right now to be with developers and in the enterprise.

It's not going to happen overnight, but I think we're seeing a pretty strong
shift away from traditional computing for most consumer applications. MS
really has no traction in that market (I suppose they could try to build off
XBox), but they're still dominant in the business sector. As such I don't
think it'd be a mistake for them to focus on developers and tools.

------
latch
Microsoft has said Ballmer won't be speaking at WWDC...talk about getting it
wrong:

<http://twitter.com/Microsoft/statuses/14850981422>

------
keithwarren
I call BS - if something sounds to good to be true it usually is...

Far more likely that time is reserved for A) Bing over Google announcement in
iPhone OS 4 or B) Office related announcements (maybe iPad?)

Given the investments Microsoft has made on the Mac the most agile team they
have who could pull off something like this would be the Silverlight team who
already has a .NET runtime (SL is a small .net runtime) running on OSX - one
would imagine the jump to iPhone as rather trivial all things considered but
there are two reasons this just doesnt make sense. Number 1 is the fact that
since SL4 shipped the entire SL team focus has turned to WinPhone7 which uses
SL as the app runtime. Second, given all the Apple pronouncements about being
against 3rd party runtimes - I cant see them saying 'oh, Silverlight is OK'

~~~
stcredzero
_I cant see them saying 'oh, Silverlight is OK'_

What if the Silverlight development environment could target an Apple-
developed and controlled runtime?

Apple would retain control, but gain access to an additional developer base as
well as a Flash competitor _with Apple platform control_.

I'm not speaking for the credibility of the Register here. (I wish they'd die
as much as Adobe would.) However, technically speaking, this is quite
possible. It's also an interesting idea.

Add in a free SWF to Silverlight cross-compiler, and you have a very strong
move against Adobe.

~~~
keithwarren
There is no such thing as an SL development environment, SL is a runtime and
VS and Expression are the primary development environments. Semantics aside
though, I just dont see it. Developing an SL runtime is not an easy task, it
would take a large team at the very least a year to put one together. I could
buy a situation where MSFT hands over the SL runtime source to Apple who then
takes it over as part of some long term agreement to guarantee SL apps run on
all Apple devices but that is about it.

~~~
stcredzero
_There is no such thing as an SL development environment, SL is a runtime and
VS and Expression are the primary development environments._

Sorry, should've used a plural.

 _Developing an SL runtime is not an easy task, it would take a large team at
the very least a year to put one together._

Not true if there's cooperation from the MS development team. There would be
compelling reasons for such cooperation. Flash is Silverlight's incumbent
competition, after all.

------
czhiddy
I don't see how this is even remotely possible. How would you run/debug apps
you compiled with VS? I highly doubt that Apple would port their platform-
specific libraries and frameworks (among others, OpenGL.framework,
Kernel.framework, IOKit.framework, IOSurface.framework) to Windows. What
happens when you try to use mach ports in your code?

Without the ability to run the app you just compiled, this rumored feature is
next to useless.

~~~
nwatson
"How would you run/debug apps you compiled with VS?" --> Visual Studio could
launch or connect to a virtualized iPhone device and let you debug there.
That's the approach you use when developing Android apps with Eclipse ...
Eclipse connects to a virtual emulated Android device.

I also think if this happens that Visual Studio would support Objective-C (and
C/C++) instead of C#/Silverlight on the iPhone. Microsoft would prefer the C#
approach but Apple won't allow it.

~~~
czhiddy
Virtualization could work, but Apple would have to build in support for it
(versus the current approach of running x86 versions of the iPhone
apps/frameworks).

------
evo_9
I think this is real for a number of reasons.

First it's a win-win for both sides.

Apple needs some positive publicity to help calm the ruckus over 3.3.1
changes, plus all the noise Adobe caused. They also would like to start
calming any rumblings from the DOJ that are starting to tremble. This helps on
all fronts.

Microsoft needs a positive win that says to the world, 'hey we are still
relavent!', the mobile train might have left the station, but we're onboard!'.
Also, this will certainly kick-up the VS2010 adoption rate, which will net MS
a pretty penny too.

June 7th is right around the corner, so we'll know soon enough but this rings
true to me.

~~~
DrJokepu
I also think it is a win-win but for entirely different reasons.

Microsoft failed to get Visual Studio into the mobile app development world,
simply because previously it only allowed developing for Windows Mobile which
is, honestly, something nobody really cares about. With iPhone development
support, they could get new markets for Visual Studio.

Apple wins because (I hope I won't offend anyone with that) Visual Studio is
just simply vastly superior to XCode. It is a truly great IDE (as opposed to
Adobe Flash) that could make OS X / iPhone development an awful lot easier.

~~~
boucher
Even if VS is better than Xcode (and I have no problem believing that it is),
I don't see how that's a win for Apple. First off, Apple isn't in the game of
admitting that their products suck, and they certainly wouldn't encourage
people to go out and buy PCs.

Secondly, Apple doesn't make that much money off app store sales, they make by
far the most money off of the hardware. This includes (though with decreasing
relevance) mac hardware sales. This may not discourage all that many mac
purchases, but will it really increase iPhone purchases? It isn't like Apple
is having a hard time getting apps on the store as it is, they are already
dominating in terms of volume. Not to mention, this would be reaching out to a
world of developers that Apple has spent the last decade insulting as being
incapable of producing quality products, exactly the kind of "crap" the
"review" process and 3.3.1 are designed to "prevent".

The only argument in the back of my mind that strikes me as particularly
persuasive is that Apple is gearing up way ahead of anyone's predicted
schedule to simply stop making macs altogether, at which point they would need
a solid alternative development platform.

~~~
portman
>> Secondly, Apple doesn't make that much money off app store sales, they make
by far the most money off of the hardware.

Do you know this for a fact, or are you speculating? They don't break out app
store sales in their 10-K, but consider quarterly hardware sales from Q4 2009:

    
    
      - 3 million Macs 
      - 9 million iPhones
      - 21 million iPods
    

In the same period, users downloaded 400 million apps, although it's unclear
how many were paid. App sales are almost 100% profit, compared to the 20% net
margins on hardware.

~~~
boucher
Of those 400 million apps, the best guesses suggest that fewer than 10% of
downloads are paid. Estimates have put the values at about 10-20 cents per
dollar app. The costs are fixed though, so they do make much higher profits on
more expensive apps. But the app store ecosystem hasn't made that a huge
factor.

Even under optimistic assumptions: 100% profit, average sale price of $5, 15%
paid downloads, the numbers are not good:

    
    
        400,000,000*0.15*5*0.3 = 90,000,000
    

That's nothing compared to the billions they are posting in profit each
quarter.

The hardware margins are also almost certainly much higher than 20%, probably
over 30% on a lot of the higher end hardware.

------
mortenjorck
In the case that this is true, this would be far and away Apple's biggest-ever
sacrificial move against the Mac for the sake of iPhone OS. Ending OS X's
exclusivity as the dev kit for iPhone OS would send an extraordinarily
profound signal about the company's priorities.

~~~
Tamerlin
Dropping the "computer" part from the name was probably a bit of
foreshadowing...

------
nightlifelover
Humm I'm not sure what the actual rumor is.. VS 2010 for the Mac or just the
ability to dev for the iPhone or the iPad using VS on Windows?

From the technical both would be possible but I guess there would be some
effort required to do either of these:

\- VS on a Mac: VS 2010 uses WPF for the gui. Therefore it would have to run
on a Mac. I guess the .net platform probably already runs on a Mac (there is
Silverlight for a Mac) and since WPF uses Direct-X they would need to hook it
up with OpenGL. However since VS is huge this would take a lot of effort I
guess, so rather unlikely.

\- The second rumor, that the VS on Windows would be able to produce
iPad/Phone apps seems easier to do from a technical perspective, since they
could use Clang/LLVM. But I don't really see the point here: There are more
then enough people developing for the iPhone/iPad and this would probably hurt
Microsofts Windows Mobile plans.. as well as Apples Mac sales..

So it's a rumor - that's all probably complete BS. We will see..

------
frou_dh
I don't believe it, but if we're imagining then officially blessed C# support
would be very cool.

~~~
protomyth
The Java -> Cocoa Binding was so poor because of the dynamic nature of
Objective-C. I wonder if C# would fair better?

~~~
DrJokepu
C# 4 supports dynamic typing.

(The C# 4 compiler is shipped with .NET 4 which is in turn shipped with
VS2010.)

------
cyanbane
I was thinking that what if they allowed a toned down version of SL on iphone,
something without any of the localized storage libs. That would put it pretty
much as a UI for any type of webservices (which is really no different than
the web at that point). It would mitigate the ability for SL to perform
features similar to apple apps (doesn't cannibalize app sales), but also would
"get silverlight" onto the iphone. Something good for both MS (hey look at
Silverilght, it went where flash couldnt!) and also for Apple ("hey we told
you were not against other frameworks, look here we allow silverlight!").

~~~
watty
This goes against everything they've been vehemently defending the past
months. An extra layer, non-unique apps, etc. AND Microsoft is a much larger
competitor than Adobe.

------
jonpaul
Umm... April fools was almost two months ago.

------
UpFromTheGut
Don't get too excited, although I don't personally have authority to dismiss
this, I have word that this is a completely FALSE rumor (sorry, I can't back
that up-- at least do yourself the favor of being skeptical).

Edit: Confirmed <http://twitter.com/Microsoft/status/14850981422> (Microsoft
official Twitter)

Quote: "Steve Ballmer not speaking at Apple Dev Conf. Nor appearing on Dancing
with the Stars. Nor riding in the Belmont. Just FYI."

------
b3b0p
Iirc, first generation iPod did not work/sync on Windows, so what is so
unbelievable about Apple having the iPhone SDK working on Windows with Visual
Studio now?

Although personally I don't think this is going to happen. As a hardware
company, i'm sure they make many extra sales from companies and developers
purchasing for the sole purpose of targeting the iPhone/iPad/iTouch and Mac OS
X users.

------
tszming
Because they have the same enemy - Google. (and not to mention Bill and Steve
look very much alike now, AAPL will be the next MSFT)

------
thought_alarm
Strategically ridiculous and technically preposterous.

How does this nonsense get published? The only story here is how so many
people apparently don't understand computers or the computer industry.

------
jeiting
The App Store has enough crappy apps. I don't think opening the platform up to
VS is going to bring in any more @atebits or the like. If you want to be
serious about iPhone/iPad you will get a Mac.

------
j_baker
This is something that could feasibly happen. But still, I'll believe it when
the words come out of Ballmer's mouth.

------
eli
It's not that crazy. Remember when an iPod could only sync with a Mac?

------
cletus
This story is all over the net at the moment. For example:

[http://blogs.computerworld.com/16201/apple_makes_iphone_dev_...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/16201/apple_makes_iphone_dev_deal_with_microsoft)

I don't know if it's true or not but there's certainly smoke. Perhaps aimed at
taking the thorn out of the section 3.3.1 changes relating to third-party
tools?

I actually understand Steve's point about cross-platform GUIs being the lowest
common denominator (just look at Java Swing apps) but it's disappointing that
change also hurt MonoTouch, which was a 1:1 iPhone API mapping and not an
intermediate layer like the Flash compiler was/is.

~~~
ergo98
>I actually understand Steve's point about cross-platform GUIs being the
lowest common denominator

Sure. iTunes on Windows.

>I don't know if it's true or not but there's certainly smoke

All of the smoke emanating from a single nobody making a completely
unsupported claim. It's actually a bit extraordinary how little is necessary
when it comes to Apple.

~~~
rbanffy
I always wondered why iTunes for Windows is Carbon based. NeXT had a full
OPENSTEP stack capable of running under NT (I did it) and that is what Cocoa
is based on.

