MAC OSX for Engineering

To contact Apple directly: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

(in here we are all just fellow Mac-user...).

Plus you should contact the developers of the programs/applications you mentioned and encourage them to bring their software to Mac OSX.

After all, it is their descision to do it or not and there might be some financial/economic reasons to not do it.

Stefan

It isn't Apple's responsibility to develop software for specific fields. You will have to contact the developers of all those applications and ask for a Mac version.

Please note as well that it is possible, and indeed quite practical, to run Windows software on your Mac, either via Boot Camp (for native Windows use) or one of the several virtualization solutions (Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion, VirtualBox). So you can have the best of both worlds, choosing the tools that best fit your needs. No need to wait for developers to decide to bring a Windows-based application to Mac OS X.

Regards.

If you run Windows in one of the virtualization solutions, you don't need to reboot.

Anyway, as was said, it's up to the developer to decide if and when they will find it good business to port their applications to Mac OS X. Apple can, and does, evangelize software developers, but the developers have to make the decision and do the work. I would suggest you contact the companies whose software you wish to run and express your interest in native Mac versions, and get all your colleagues to do the same. The developers will make the port only when they see that they will gain sales by doing so.

Regards.

Hi there,

You can try opensource software such as OpenSees, oofem or Impact. I was able to install/compile them in my os x lion. They do not come with the nice graphic interface but you can run your analysis with them.

Regards

with all do respect, Google for instance did not wait for the greatest companies such as Youtube to knock their door asking for partnership etc. now we all know that google is becoming, if not '' became '' a strong competitor to Apple (who would've imagned) but hey, google is not bigheaded, yet they make more money 😉

i woudner what would Steve Jobs say 😀

With all due respect, you've posted in a thread that's over two years old.

Google for instance did not wait for the greatest companies such as Youtube to knock their door asking for partnership etc

Nope, Google went out and bought them. Are you suggesting that Apple go out and buy niche software developers? If so, that's unrealistic since that's not Apple's market nor business strategy. Apple is a consumer electronics company.

google is not bigheaded, yet they make more money

Are you really that uninformed?

http://www.androidauthority.com/apples-2012-profit-more-than-combined-profits-go ogle-microsoft-facebook-yahoo-amazon-ebay-134428/

i woudner what would Steve Jobs say

Just what I said above, as he did on multiple occasions. Steve knew what Apple's strengths were.

MAC IS NOT FOR ENGINEERS.

This is why:

AutoCAD is not fully completed and all the other finite element software's that you mention are not working even on parallels.

I am having a Mac Book Pro Retina Display i7, a MAC that costs £1800 and is not able to do simple calculations!

If you make the analysis and then the design of a structure on ETABS or SAP2000 using parallels for MAC running windows 7, the results are completely wrong. I already solve the introduction tutorials for ETABS and SAP200, both on parallels for MAC and on a Windows desktop and the results from parallels where completely different from the video tutorial ones, in the other hand the results that came from the Windows desktop analysis where the same as the tutorial example, hence the corect ones.

So the bottom line is that if you are an Engineer you need to get Windows, as MAC is not ''pushing'' to the Civil/Structural or any other engineering field. Maybe they think that playing with video and photo software's is more important..

If you have a problem with Parallels, ETABS, or SAP, you should contact the makes of those products.

The "engineering" field is very broad and you cannot make any such claims about it in relation to the Mac because a couple of tools don't work properly on some other operating system.

Are you an Engineer Etresoft?

Did you ever contact companies like Autodesk or CSI to try to get an answer from them or to be heard?

I guess not.

Also consider that AutoCAD, ETABS and SAP2000 is not couple of tools, is THE TOOLS for Engineers and this topic is for Engineers.

So just accept it that MAC is not for engineering.

Engineering is so wide and it needs so many software's and for that moment is this planet are available only for Windows.

Don't be a hater just accept it, is talking to you a guy that supports Apple more than anybody but in this field is so behind.

So get some experience on the field, try to use some engineering software's on mac and windows, do some research, learn the pros and cons from personal experience and then come here and comment. Do not tell us philosophies of who to contact or what claims to make and what claims not to make.

NickZaf wrote:

Are you an Engineer Etresoft?

Yes. I do satellites. Big ones. If I screw something up, Congress asks what happened.

Did you ever contact companies like Autodesk or CSI to try to get an answer from them or to be heard?

Kind of. I contact my vendors if I discover a problem that I can't work around and need or want a fix. If it is something I can't fix on my own, it is going to be pretty tough to track down. I always try to find the exact cause of the problem whenever possible. However, I can't recall ever contacting any vendor just "to be heard". They know they are providing a valuable product if I, and other engineers, keep buying it. Just because I find one particular problem doesn't mean the product isn't useful to me or other engineers.

Also consider that AutoCAD, ETABS and SAP2000 is not couple of tools, is THE TOOLS for Engineers and this topic is for Engineers.

I think you are the one that needs to gain some experience. If those are the only tools you use, then you are not "an engineer", but an AutoCAD/ETABS/SAP2000 user. What did such "engineers" do before those tools existed?

There are many different kinds of engineers. You are only talking about civil engineering. And I have to tell you, among other engineers, civil engineering is not one of the more respected domains. 😉

I think this discussion is getting out of place:

- All engineers are respected.

- The tools normally used by Structural Engineers are not avaiable for mac unless you use virtualization. I use SAP 2000 under a Windows 7 Virtualbox on my mac book air without any problem.

- There are plenty of opensource codes multiplatform that you could use but that will not be as simple to use as SAP/ETABS.

What you (NickZaf) are trying to do is like going to Burger King asking for the MacMenu. I would recommend you using Virtualbox to run Windows software under OS X and look for other native solutions.

By the way, I am also a civil engineer and have been using Mac at work for the past 3 years.

-I am really laughing with the answers that you giving etresoft, i really do. Your statements are completely philosophical helping nobody in this community.

As an engineer i am well aware of other solutions and i am using them, the fact is that if you have loads of work and you need many software's to work with, MAC OS is not helping. Its not engineering to make your life more difficult trying to solve problems that are already been solved.

-Thank you for the real valuable and quick answer armonmar i really appreciate it.

To explain the problem of virtual machine working with finite element software's more in depth:

I am using virtual machine as i reference before, all the finite element software's that i try to use in the virtual machine (SAP/ETABS/SAFE/CSiCol) they giving different results in analysis, in respect of the shear, bending and the reaction forces from the results that you are getting when the analysis is running on a PC or from the results doing hand calculations. Do anybody have any idea why is this happening? Many fellow engineers have exactly the same problem and they are already switch from MAC to Windows.

I will try to run the proses on Virtual Box instead of virtual machine armonmar, i hope it is going to work. Kindly give me your feedback on these software's (SAP/ETABS/SAFE/CSiCol) if you already run an analysis on Virtual Box or any other suggestions for finite elemetn softwares running on MAC OS for Steel Frame design and Concrete Design.

Any feedback on OpenSees a software framework for developing applications to simulate the performance of structural and geotechnical systems subjected to earthquakes, it would be valuable as well.

"This community" is a community of people who use Apple products. You aren't doing that. You are using Windows and various 3rd party Windows-only software. If this is critical software you need to run for your livelihood, then you need to run it on Windows. You are not going to find any solutions in this developer forum by resurrecting dead threads from three years ago.