Final release for macOS support for NI Software

[billko]

The conspiracy theorist in me says that Emerson wanted to stop supporting LabVIEW on Mac...

[rolfk]

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@lucian.grec wrote:

Are there any plans to support LabVIEW on ARM-based MacBooks running Linux?

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Not very likely. This would require porting at least the most relevant drivers over to that platform too.

Of course, if a large client would step forward and offer NI a guarantee to buy a few 1000 licenses if they did this, NI might feel tempted. But otherwise it makes not a lot of sense in terms of shareholder value ROI. And as we all know that is the golden rule about most things nowadays.

[crossrulz]

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@billko wrote:

The conspiracy theorist in me says that Emerson wanted to stop supporting LabVIEW on Mac...

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I would attribute this more towards NI wanting to simplify their code base, including the desire to make 32-bit obsolete (I have not heard a timeline for this yet, just the intent).  Removing support for an OS removes a major code burden.

[rolfk]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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@billko wrote:

The conspiracy theorist in me says that Emerson wanted to stop supporting LabVIEW on Mac...

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I would attribute this more towards NI wanting to simplify their code base, including the desire to make 32-bit obsolete (I have not heard a timeline for this yet, just the intent).  Removing support for an OS removes a major code burden.

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There are currently only two 32-bit platforms left: The NI Linux RT for ARM and Windows. LabVIEW for MacOS and Linux have been exclusively 64-bit since LabVIEW 2016.

The 32-bit Windows version is due for obsoleting somewhere between now and maybe 2 years. The NI Linux RT for ARM may be obsoleted at some point too, but the ARM RT controllers are a considerably lower price entry point into the NI hardware ecosystem than their x64 based brethren.

[crossrulz]

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@rolfk wrote:

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@crossrulz wrote:

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@billko wrote:

The conspiracy theorist in me says that Emerson wanted to stop supporting LabVIEW on Mac...

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I would attribute this more towards NI wanting to simplify their code base, including the desire to make 32-bit obsolete (I have not heard a timeline for this yet, just the intent).  Removing support for an OS removes a major code burden.

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There are currently only two 32-bit platforms left: The NI Linux RT for ARM and Windows. LabVIEW for MacOS and Linux have been exclusively 64-bit since LabVIEW 2016.

The 32-bit Windows version is due for obsoleting somewhere between now and maybe 2 years. The NI Linux RT for ARM may be obsoleted at some point too, but the ARM RT controllers are a considerably lower price entry point into the NI hardware ecosystem than their x64 based brethren.

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Fair enough.  I only meant to imply 32-bit Windows becoming obsolete.  What exactly is done in an RT controller is not something I care about as I have never needed to care about the OS on my cRIOs other than some minor file path issues.

[rolfk]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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Fair enough.  I only meant to imply 32-bit Windows becoming obsolete.  What exactly is done in an RT controller is not something I care about as I have never needed to care about the OS on my cRIOs other than some minor file path issues.

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The Mac definitely required a non-trivial amount of special code and also a special programming language. The 32-bit version of LabVIEW for MacOS X had many Carbon APIs and sometimes even legacy code in there. This made the initial port to MacOS X easier, but Apple was continuously depreciating more and more of those APIs. The future was the Cocoa API but that requires pretty much ObjectiveC code, which is considerably different than the C/C++ programming that the rest of LabVIEW code is in on all other platforms. (Although under the hood ObjectiveC is really just a sort of preprocessor that translates everything into hard to understand C code, but trying to program on that C level directly is very frustrating.)

So yes, removing the MacOS version of LabVIEW definitely makes code maintenance significantly easier.

[_Chris]

Supporting OSX does not requires that many (very talented) people.

I don't understand why NI stopped OSX support. 

Ch.

[Yndigegn]

Hi

Rolf stated in a previous entry that Linux is probably not going away.

I like to add an observation to indicate that Linux will be alive for the foreseeable future :

NI is truly obsessive in their driver update frequency. Four versions a year. That is impressive. They are so busy they don't had time yet to write a release note for the newest.

Regards

[apg_air]

I have a number of quick question on the purchase of LabVIEW. I normally use LabVIEW professional complete with the application builder. I never use TestStand or any other add-ons.

If I want to buy a copy of LabVIEW for use within my business (I am a contractor):

1) Can you still buy LabVIEW professional, one of charge, non-subscription?

2) If I purchase the subscription version does it actually stop working completely at the end of the first year?

3) Can I also download and use the Linux version using the same license?

[rolfk]

1) Officially no, there used to be a possibility in the beginning if someone was really insisting but they also had to reach someone who was able to navigate the internal order system beyond the standard options.

2) Yes

3) Yes