I've got both PC's and Mac's - I use Mac's for business and Desktop PC's for fun (been doing PC's for about 20 years - Mac's for just 3.)

Any chance at all that Icarus could port AFPD to OS X?? The Hardware on Mac's is super! My Laptop is currently a 1.5GHz PPC with 1.25GB RAM DDR266 and an ATI 9700 Mobility Graphics Chipset with 64MB DDR. I believe that AFPD would run great on these new platforms, and the Mac community has been screaming for a flight simulator.

To date, only a couple of free open-source simulators are available. They are pretty primative - graphics are great, but the underlying sim stuff is lacking.

...

Oh, and I forgot! Mac folks, generally, are A LOT more willing to spend a couple hundred bucks on a program than PC folks!! Good market here!!

I'd say the odds are none within the next 5 years for obvious reasons.

1. Mac's market share on US national level (10%)
2. Mac's market share on world level (3%)
2. Mac's market share of users that fly rc planes (3%)

RC users just don't use Macs plain and simple. Otherwise we would get this post much more then we do. I think I've seen this asked 3 times now in 1 year.

If Mac/RC users were maybe even 1/2 of the national average, then maybe they would think about it.

I don't mean to sound discouraging, it's just the facts.

That's just not true, almost makes PC owners sound cheap. I own a Mac and a PC. Love my Mac ... but hate their closed minded marketing attitude which results in me only being able to use it for my grapchical programs.

People are paying $150-250 for these sims because they are smart. It's better to invest $175 in a sim then spend $4000 on a giant scale bird just to see it come home in a hundred pieces while learning to fly it.

Hi Dion, I was still waiting to hear from the last mac post a week or so ago. In it you said you can tell how many people that visit a web site ( like this forum ) are using mac. I am not a computer guru, but how is this done?

I asked RCU site admin and he said less then 5% browse RCU with Macs.

You have to also consider the International market too, not just US. The International market is much lower in Mac users.

I'm all for a Mac version. But look at all the other PC software that sells MILLIONS of copies for PC that does not sell for Mac.

I am with you Dion, I love my mac. But I am still curios to know exactly how you can tell what % of people visiting a web site are mac. Does the server take some info from my computer when I visit a site? Just how do you get to find out who is visiting a particular site? Thats what I am going for, just curios.





P.S.- I am writing this on my mac right now-- can you tell??

AITH, there's probably just a marker sent when cookie's are established specifiying what browser you are using. I'm currently using Safari on my Mac , but if I were using Netscape instead, you might not be able to tell. Then again, the marker might specify what platform Netscape is running on.

STLPilot, it's good to see that you have a Mac also! You are right about the marketshare statistics, for today anyway. I believe that Macs will start stealing marketshare away from M$ at an accelerating rate over the next couple years. M$'s bold manuver to "clampdown" Windows in XP SP2 is evidence that folks are tired of Viruses, Spyware, and unsolicited attacks on their personal property. Many frustrated PC owners are switching to Macs for those very reasons; which is why that US statistic is 10% now and not 5.

I did not mean to offend (if I did) regarding my statement of Mac users being more willing to spend extra $$'s, but in my opinion - they are. I have not seen many PC programs (save for M$ Office) that retail for between $399 and $5K for the consumer market, in the wild. I have, though, seen several of the Mac packages retailing for that much on friends and aquaintences Macs. (I myself have spent over $1K on S/W for my Mac over the past 2 years - more than I EVER spent on my PC's in 20 years!)

Also, it was Apple that was first successful in selling Music (MP3/MP4) via the Internet (to Mac owners,) when the big rage in the PC market was getting MP3's for free (I won't mention that 90% of this was theft!) - via Napster, etc. I would argue that this is more evidence of my claim.

Be that as is may (or may not,) I didn't post this to encite a riot. I just thought is was a good idea - if AFPD wasn't too closely coded to a Windows platform - to release AFPD for OS X. That's all. I think it would run GREAT on a Mac!

AFPD uses OpenGL right???

P.S. Would you claim that only 3% of PC users are RCers as well? Just curious.

Hey no problem. I'm just telling you the way it is. There is just no way you'll see a Mac version of and top brand sim for a while. I'd love to be shown different, but I live in reality.

I have no idea how any Mac owner cannot own a PC. I mean shiyat ... you spend 2-3k on a nice Mac box, what's another 5-6 hundred for a PC with a monitor switch. Like you said .. Mac users are willing to spend 500-thousands for software, a PC is just a drop in the bucket.

I mean call Dell get one of their TV specials and put a 200 video card in it. Now you have 2 computers and run anything PC based.

Every browser sends a header identifying what OS and browser it is. No cookies needed.

Dion, that's just what I did!! But, I ended up spending $1000 upgrading my PC: $200 Motherboard, $200 Memory, $300 Processor, $50 Pwr Supply, $250 ATI 9800 Pro.

Like I said, I've had PC for the better part of 20 years (1st PC in 1986.) Eventhough I've switched to a Mac as my primary platform, I still end up maintaining my PC's for one reason or another. My previous system was a 700 MHz PIII w/4X AGP -- just wouldn't cut it, even with a $200+ video card.

Thanks for the info RCadmin. Thats what I was looking for, and thanks Dion for the help. The help you are bringing to this forum was a major factor in my decision to buy AFPD.

I don't think an apple version is around the corner anytime soon, but it never hurts to let people know there is interest out there.

Otherwise, how would we ever get a great flight-sim for the Mac!!

My point exactly.

Hey start a lobby or do what you have to do. I'm only stating the facts. I'd be more then happy to see a Mac version. That would only put us above everyone else in that aspect too!

Mac users have been down this road many times before though.

Maybe on the next rewrite if we yell loud enough. I bet 95% or more of the code could be the same for both platforms. I don't code, I'm a 3D modeler/animator and went through this with software packages before. I'm now entirely Mac based and running Lightwave, Maya, and Modo all on my Macs. I've even heard some of the engineers working on these apps comment that OSX is a much more superior platform for development than Windows. A petition worked for Maya, which is probably a much more expensive proposition than what we are talking about here. So start a petition, maybe just a thread here in these forums, or if we could get an email address for someone that may be even better.

Being a Mac User for over 15 yrs , I'm all for a Mac Version of the flight simulator. I use both Mac & PC but I mainly use the Mac for everything and the PC just for the simulator. I really don't care for the PC, the only reason i use it is because that's what they use at work. I never did like it and probably never will but that's just my opinion.

It's going to have to be a rather loud yell. Mac users and RC pilots are way below the national average of Mac users.

Less then 2% of users that come to OMP's website is via Mac. About 4% that visit RCU are via Mac. Since AFP is an International product created by an German company the number of Mac users is even lower worldwide.

It's not just the cost of development, but the cost of production in small amounts. Since the whole product would be different, even the hardware, it would not get the same volume pricing that AFP gets while in production.

Your best bet is to just go out and get a PC. I have a Mac and a PC. I just don't see how anyone can be without a PC. Especially a Mac user. Most Mac users are at higher income levels statistically and they pay more money for some simple software then what most PC's cost. Forget pride and loyalty to Mac .... your missing all the fun.

Don't take this the wrong way Mac users, but you've seen this road many times before. I've seen great PC software that was created in volumes in the millions that were never created for Mac. RC is a small niche hobby, then when you put Mac into the equation you just lowered that equation by another 95%.

I don't think measuring the hits on a website would be a very accurate way of measuring a potential user base. I also don't see how the whole product would be different, with proper planning I think they could be almost identical, even down to the hardware. Again, I am not a software engineer, but am seeing it done by other companies who are producing much more complex modeling/animation/simulation applications that are claiming their code for mulitple platforms in almost identical. Alias, Newtek, and Luxology are all doing it.

I agree on missing the fun, and yeah I've got a couple of pcs too. I own a graphic design company and on rare occasion do need to crank one up to test web pages, presentations ... that will be viewed on a pc. Not to hijack a thread, but now I just need someone to convince me on AFPD or Reflex. BTW, I've heard of some Mac users successfully running an interface with XPlane on the Mac. Though the number of rc aircraft are limited, I've heard the simulation is pretty accurate if you tweak with the scale a bit.

Well I tend to disagree on that seeing that RCU has an RC based user community. Over 140k members and tens of thousands of non registered visitors that come here every month. The statistic is based on millions of impressions, not hundreds or thousands. That's proabably better stats then all the presidential polling for 2004 combined in all the major polls.

Statistically, it can't get any better then that unless you were to combine all of the statistics with all of the top RC forums on the Internet and combine their Mac/PC user data.

But your potential user base goes far beyond the ones who visit this site, or even surf the web at all.

Now I wasn't a Math major in college, but I did take stats. The polling number is still very high. It does not matter if the base is larger, the poll is based on the actual number.

Companies pay big money for polls and stats that are based only in the low thousands. Most typical voting polls are based on just a couple thousand people and they have accuracy an within 2-3%.

A 140k+ user poll is very accurate with a +/- accuracy of much less then 1%.

I'm sorry to say, but statistically it does not get any better then that.

I would actually hate to see a MAC version of AFPD.

For what it's worth, I run an IT business, and have been in the IT industry for 20 years. I've been involved in many software development projects, and they are just way more time-consuming than what you might imagine. This is true even of a "simple" port. There's more than just the porting. You have to do extensive testing on a variety of platforms and OS versions (even OS X isn't a single version), you have to provide support, you have to provide patches and updates to fix bugs, and to support new hardware and OS updates. And it doesn't stop -- you have to go through all this every time a new patch or version is being prepared (which slows down release).

Who is going to do this work? The same people currently responsible for fixing bugs in the current version, for developing new features for AFP super-deluxe (or whatever the next version will be called), for improving the physics, for creating new planes, for coming up with support for new transmitters, for responding to customer support requests.

The reality is that a Mac version of AFPD would significantly slow development of new features and versions. Do you want the next version of AFPD delayed by 1-2 years? Do you want less time spent on improving the physics engine? Do you want to risk having AFPD fall behind competitors and lose overall market share?

Dion's use of RCU visitors as representative of English-speaking RC hobbyists is completely legitimate. There's no reason to think that the Mac market for AFPD could come close to paying for the internal company resources required; meaning that the time will have to be taken away from "core" PC development.

So guys, let's vote for the best simulator we can get, not for a mediocre sim that runs on multiple platforms.

- Eric

Don't get me wrong and I said it before, I would love to see a Mac version. But I just don't see it happening for a long time. The numbers just don't add up.

We are the distributors of AFP not the manufacturer. But if I was the manufacturer there would be no way I would condsider trying to develop a simulator for a user base of only 3%-5% of the entire RC community.

These top name creators of RC sims know these numbers too, they are going to invest there time and dollars where the marketshare is just like Eric was saying.

This thing about Mac making a big comeback in the US market would be great, but there is only 1 problem; Microsoft. For every inch Jobs and Co. tries to pull forward, Gates and Co. can move 5 times faster.

If you own only a Mac and not a PC for personal reasons, you have to let that go.