Apple's January 24, 1984, public announcement of the original Macintosh computer touted the system's "extraordinary computing power with exceptional ease of use" — characteristics that remain true of Macs today and that help account for the system's continuing appeal to creative professionals.

That appeal, however, has not extended to the global mass market. Of the nearly 270 million personal computers sold worldwide in 2007, less than 3% were Macs. (In the U.S. market, which skews toward a more affluent, better-educated, and more creative demographic, Macs accounted for just more than 6% of new personal computer sales.)

Despite these demographic odds, dedicated fans among AEC professionals remain loyal to the Mac's ideals, using Macs in far greater proportions than the general population. This loyalty is supported by a wide assortment of Mac-native software capable of any AEC practice task.

In 2006, Apple changed its Macintosh hardware design to the Intel CPU family of chips (the central processing unit inside the computer) — which is the same CPU family used by Windows PCs. Apple's Boot Camp software supports toggling an Intel-based Mac between the native Mac OS (operating system) and Windows XP or Vista. Third-party virtual-machine software, such as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion, allows users to run Mac OS X and Windows concurrently on the same computer.

This latter capability turns the global PC demographics equation on its head. Macs are the only PCs that can run essentially 100% of the software on the market, both Windows ware and Mac-native applications (the current Mac OS X 10.5 [A.K.A. Leopard] is certified as an implementation of the UNIX operating system as well). Thus, Windows on a Mac can run AEC software applications such as AutoCAD. Any browser-based application that requires the Windows-only Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, such as Autodesk Buzzsaw, can run on the latest Macs as well.

Macs, Macs Everywhere

Figure 1. ArchiCAD 11 on the Mac combines the power of mainstream BIM authoring with the polish of the Mac interface, as in this visualization and contract document example for a 531-room Wyndham Hotel in Phoenix by Orcutt | Winslow. (Courtesy Orcutt | Winslow Architecture, Planning, Interior Design)

Although Windows-on-Mac makes business sense for Apple, many Mac-using AEC professionals would question the rationale for running Windows software when Mac-native programs are available with equal or superior performance and user experience. Counting software that started on the Mac and is now available for both Mac and Windows (often in a single version dubbed Universal), there's actually more AEC-relevant Mac software out there than can be covered in one article. I'll defer Mac-based home-building software for a future article on design and production tools for home builders; ditto for Mac-based engineering software. Of the rest, I apologize in advance if I omit any otherwise-noteworthy products due to space limitations.

Figure 2. The Mac version of VectorWorks Architect from Nemetschek is a mainstream BIM application that can handle design projects even at large, urban scales. (Designed in VectorWorks by Grüntuch Ernst Architekten, Berlin)

Mainstream building information modeling (BIM)–authoring applications, such as Graphisoft's ArchiCAD (figure 1) and Nemetschek North America's VectorWorks (figure 2), were the mainstays of Mac-based architectural design and documentation even before the recent popularization of the BIM label. Solibri Model Checker is a critical element in any BIM automation workflow. To integrate buildings models with their sites, ArchiCAD relies on ArchiSITE, while VectorWorks offers Landmark — one of the best building-siting and landscape-design programs on any platform (and a favorite among landscape architects).