New SIM coming

[Nige321]

The biggest problem with writing code for Apple stuff is that if you want to publish it then it has to go through Apple first so their programmers can go through your code and check it all meets their standards, etc. (it has to go through Apple first so their programmers can go through your code) before they'll allow it anywhere near their machines. And they'll charge you an arm and both legs for the service and continuing charges for 'support and licensing' of your code.

It makes niche products such as flight-sims prohibitively expensive to develop and publish without going anywhere near the issue of being forced to trust that Apple won't do anything underhanded with your Intellectual Property. It's the primary reason why so little software gets released on Apple machines, especially when Mac's can pretty easily just run Windows through a VM or dual-boot setup.

In an ideal world everything would be on Apple Macs but the company stopping it - for very good reasons on Apple's part - is Apple themself.

Wrong in pretty much every respect.

"it has to go through Apple first so their programmers can go through your code"
Really?? You don't submit source code.

"And they'll charge you an arm and both legs for the service and continuing charges for 'support and licensing' of your code."
You really don't know what you are talking about... Do you know how much they charge for the dev program?? Thought not. It's $99/year.
From my dev info...

• You pick the price
• You get 70% of sales revenue
• Receive payments monthly
• No charge for free apps
• No credit card fees
• No hosting fees
• No marketing fees
• Volume Purchasing

"It makes niche products such as flight-sims prohibitively expensive to develop and publish without going anywhere near the issue of being forced to trust that Apple won't do anything underhanded with your Intellectual Property"
Apple have better things to do. If there's one company I'd trust with my software product it's Apple - unlike Microsoft or Google...

You don't have to go through Apple at all. You can download xCode for free, and publish and sell your efforts anywhere you like.

Sadly the "It's expensive to develop for Mac" doesn't hold water these days. Software can be developed for both using the same code for very little extra money these days. The only thing that holds it back is the developers themselves assuming it's too difficult to deal with both.

Spot on. It's cheaper to dev on the Mac than any other platform. Xcode is free, and the dev program is as low as $99/year.
And Apple will bend over backwards to help you, unlike a few other big boys I can think of.

It's a shame this sim won't be available on Mac - it's the developers loss...

[Jez N]

Spot on. It's cheaper to dev on the Mac than any other platform. Xcode is free, and the dev program is as low as $99/year..

Is it as cheap to develop on both as it is on one? If not, then the fact developers choose PC over Mac is obvious given the widespread distribution of PC compared to Mac.

[Ade_Law]

Officially I'm out of luck, I asked them and they say upgrading from the 2.5 disc I have is not supported. I'm sure I could find a torrent somewhere but that doesn't change the standing point of the makers of the sim.

yup.... you are right you definitely cant buy v5 dvd from the phoenix website for 15quid......

[Boggy]

Seems a very aggresive reply Nige!

[Nige321]

Is it as cheap to develop on both as it is on one? If not, then the fact developers choose PC over Mac is obvious given the widespread distribution of PC compared to Mac.

No.
But having done the development work for PC, the cost of porting to Mac will be low. Had both been done at the same time, it would have been even lower.

The developer has kissed goodbye to a lot of potential users...

[Nige321]

Seems a very aggresive reply Nige!

Sorry, but it just chee$e$ me off when people perpetuate the same rubbish about Mac development...!

[Jez N]

No.
But having done the development work for PC, the cost of porting to Mac will be low. Had both been done at the same time, it would have been even lower.

The developer has kissed goodbye to a lot of potential users...

But that's the way it's been for over two decades now. You choose mac and you know the score. I agree that the developers loose potential customers. But you think they don't know this? Similarly you bought a mac knowing that it wasn't supported by industry the same way as PC.

[Jez N]

Also don't forget that there will be future developments of the software. Updates, fixes, patches, whatever. All these have to be done on both formats free of charge (ie incorporated into the original cost). Another reason to stick with the high earner rather than the niche market.

[r4nd0m]

Also don't forget that there will be future developments of the software. Updates, fixes, patches, whatever. All these have to be done on both formats free of charge (ie incorporated into the original cost). Another reason to stick with the high earner rather than the niche market.

develop with Unity and compile for what ever platform ...Mac, PC, IOS, Android you name it ... neXt for example uses the unity engine ...

[Zeeflyboy]

New SIM coming

Actually, last figure I saw suggested that in 2012 the ratio of windows to Mac was down to around 19:1 as compared to 56:1 in 2004... In all likelihood that trend has continued for the last 2 years as well. Either way that's millions of macs world wide.

But that doesn't tell the whole story either, consider that the majority of work place and industrial PCs are windows, and would never see use as a PC at home with a copy of heli simulator software. The ratio of domestic computers which are actually the target of developers like this that run Mac is probably much, much higher than that... Especially in key markets such as the UK and USA where apple penetration is higher than the average.

Sorry, but it is not a niche product anymore... That hasn't been true for many years, especially in the home computing market. That is plainly evidenced by the fact that so much software outside of specific industrial type program's are either available on both platforms or have good equivalents on both. In fact the only area in which I struggle with a mac is RC software. Even my 3D printing needs are fully covered on Mac, something that is far more niche than a heli flight sim.

You only have to look at this thread to see there are a significant number of users that want this on mac. How can that be the case if it is such a small niche OS? Not only is it no longer a small market, but it's still an actively growing one too.

Aaaaanyway, nice teaser for the sim - hope it lives up to the hype. I personally won't be interested in it any time soon without a mac version... I was on the edge for getting neXt just to let me use a decent sim natively, this would certainly have swayed me had it been cross platform too. C'est la vie.

[Jamin_00]

How about you take the MAC v's Windows debate to another thread please and leave this for the SIM.

Atm the SIM is on Windows, leave it there as we all know this and that and I'm a MAC user but happy to use it on VMWare Fusion and that why I have it.


Im excited for you lot to hear from Ash on Tuesday as it will blow you away, oh wait, I think I have already said that

[AlastairC]

Looking forward to hearing and seeing more on this. As I have switched controller (I blame you Ben for this ;-) ) to a Bavarian Demon which I am loving every minute of ... I have setup realflight to emulate this thanks to some work by an Australian fan of this FBL controller. To get/keep muscle memory I view this as a very important feature for me now.

Now it would be very cool (and I would end up with another sim) if a BD was an option in its neat looking heli workshop screens.

Cheers,
Alastair.

[r4nd0m]

How about you take the MAC v's Windows debate to another thread please and leave this for the SIM.

Atm the SIM is on Windows, leave it there as we all know this and that and I'm a MAC user but happy to use it on VMWare Fusion and that why I have it.


Im excited for you lot to hear from Ash on Tuesday as it will blow you away, oh wait, I think I have already said that

Ben, I'd say you should open a new thread for the actual sim when you are allowed to share actual facts - at this stage everything is speculative only as no information has actually been shared except a teaser video - so I would think its perfectly fine to keep any discussion that has started on this one ...

as for the win/mac discussion - as there were threats about pricing/copyrights and cloning - this means that a MAC version costs - product+windows license (+possibly VM) so it may not be competitive - especially as I doubt that the devs actually test performance on VMs or invest time to improve performance on VM - majority of the time its a "may work to your satisfaction" excuse to run it rather than being a "feature" ...

Zeeflyboy raised a valid point and every developer not seeing the facts, doesnt review the potential markets. PCs are on the decline in general, everything leans towards the internet of things, looking at the pure figures mobile and tablet devices are exceeding pc numbers by far - I doubt its developed for tablet screen sizes, iOS devices drive apple sales and other than microsoft which report shipped items, apple reports items sold - so you possibly could say for every x devices in eg. currys unsold stock - there are x apple devices in consumers homes ... here are the latest analyst facts Gartner Says Worldwide PC, Tablet and Mobile Phone Combined Shipments to Reach 2.4 Billion Units in 2013

when I talk to our clients who are heavily trying to solve the bring your own device issue, windows pcs/laptop and event tablets arent on their priority list at all but android, iOS and macos x devices ... companies like mikado, dji and others recognise this already and have their rc tools available for these platforms ...

[Jamin_00]

This is a teaser vid and it's out there for everyone to see. More info is coming for all

Just keep it on topic about the sim
Not development this that and costs.

[tomatwalden]

This is a teaser vid and it's out there for everyone to see. More info is coming for all

Just keep it on topic about the sim
Not development this that and costs.

Arguably it is on topic Ben. The discussion about sims on Macs has come from the fact that many now own them (perhaps to the frustration of some who don't like apple). Consequently, running Windows only software is awkward for many people, people who are no longer in a niche. For me to run real flight, I have to use bootcamp. No real issue with that in itself, but buying a standalone copy of windows is really expensive . I'm quite lucky in that I have a friend who works for MS so I got my copy ludicrously cheap. But in the modern era, it makes an awful lot of sense for this sim to be made available for both platforms. It will increase its popularity, and the development work, if done right isn't that much more.