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It looks like a Java app to me. Is it a Cocoa App or Java? Lots of brokers have Java based platforms. I've not used one of them that I would use to trade live.
MB Trading has one(garbage), PFG Best has one(a little better), Dukascopy, I think Deutsche Bank, and several other companies have Java JVMs that will run on a Mac, but are not native OSX Cocoa apps.
IMHO, the best solution for running trading apps on the MAC is.... Ta Da! A Win 2008 Server VPS with Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection on the Mac. RDC is an Cocoa app and works better than any other remote product I have ever used. There is very little difference between using my VPS and the machine that is in my living room. The best trading software is for Windows(& Linux?), so I choose to use the best software for me and let that determine the OS I run it on.
I would love for there to be a real OSX trading app. I'm even fantasizing about developing one with a friend...
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Agreed. I really don't know the value (or lack thereof) of Java vs. other types of trading platforms, but I have used some of the most popular. TT and Ninja are probably the best out there in terms of certain features and functionality, but I've been using this Firetip program for a few months now and for what I'm trading, I find it the most intuitive and the quickest functioning by far. It's really slick and for basic day trading (on DoM and Chart), it has served me very well.
Ignorance is bliss! If you like your broker and their java platform, that's all that matters.
MetalTrade, of course it's not bad just because it's java, but are you telling me that you feel java apps and cocoa apps are basically interchangeable if they are written "right". This is false. There are significant differences between cocoa apps and java apps.
I have what some may consider massive experience in both JAVA and ObjC (Apple Coding language Objective C), in enterprise situations.
3/4 of server based mission critical code used by banks is JAVA. To clear up the misconceptions between JAVA and ObjC, they both have what you would call heap based memory for creating objects on the fly. It is this type of memory allocation that trading software uses mostly.
JAVA has the properties of . . . if you leave the application running for a long period of time it will get quicker and quicker. This is because all those objects which are created are being stored in the ram. If your application is running slow it means you need more ram.
ObjC is the native language of an Apple machine using OS X, however it is still what we call in Software terms, an abstraction of the underlying machine code. So it too like JAVA needs to be interpreted, even though it is a superset of the C programming language and has the availability of stack based memory allocation. Yes if you wrote the whole app in c it would be initially quicker. However over time as the amount of information increases it becomes faster to create objects in the heap, and free them up as the memory is needed. I would assume as serious traders you would barely turn off your machines.
The difference Between ObjC and Java world not be noticeable to individuals making trades on a home PC or VPS (virtual Private Server). In some cases JAVA may be quicker, depending on the quality of code written, other cases when the machine is regularly turned off ObjC may be quicker.
I hope this takes all the BS out of it and clarifies everything on the speed issue front.