If you want to use a Mac for SAP software development you have to be very precise about which components and functionality you can use.
Widgets or iPhone apps for that matter are based upon the communication protocols SOAP or REST. Each platform will require it's own technology (Dashbord - JavaScript and XML, iPhone - Objective C) or clever HTML and CSS tricks to implement the perfect small application.
Using some smart HTML tweaking one can even run the SAPGui for HTML on an iPhone. Just check the iTunes store for 'SAPPLAPP'. There are also a number of Business Objects apps available. Another interesting app is SAP ECO Hub to browse trough the Eco Hub offerings.
ABAP
The SAPGui ABAP editor (SE80/SE38) can be used for ABAP program development. functionality is limited though; both the screen painter and the smartforms editor are not supported.JAVA and SOAP
Eclipse is available for OS X and with it, some attempts have already been made to install NWDS on Mac OS but with varying results. According to the posts on SDN there is no fully satisfying solution. An Eclipse plug-in for NetWeaver does exist. See on the SAP Marketplace for details.
This screenshot has been made during an attempt to install NWDS on OS X 10.6:
As you can see, the installer is explicitly checking the operatingsystem it is running on. So, no luck for today!
The SAP JCo libraries are platform independent. If you want to implement Java to SAP communication based upon JCo this should work. See also this Apple presentation on YouTube and SAP Note 1077727 SAP JCo 3.0 release and support strategy. Officialy OS X 10.6.x is currently not supported!
If you implement an interface in SOAP it is possible to directly interact with AppleScript or any other SOAP compatible language.
Visual Composer
Starting Visual Composer (VC) from Safari (WebKit) or Camino (Gecko) is rather disappointing. Although both browsers natively support (parts) of the Scalable Vector Graphics standard they refuse to render the VC desktop. For some reason the SAP code is only compatible with IE. At Wikipedia an article can be found about SVG and on how the major browsers have implemented the support. Although native SVG has been announced by Microsoft for IE9, even IE8 still needs an add-on. Probably somewhere in the future SAP will fully support SVG on all browsers. Until now there is no alternative than to rely on IE
Widgets and Mobile Applications
Mac OS X widgets in Dashboard can communicate with SAP systems. Apple is using this technology internally, see this YouTube video.Widgets or iPhone apps for that matter are based upon the communication protocols SOAP or REST. Each platform will require it's own technology (Dashbord - JavaScript and XML, iPhone - Objective C) or clever HTML and CSS tricks to implement the perfect small application.
Using some smart HTML tweaking one can even run the SAPGui for HTML on an iPhone. Just check the iTunes store for 'SAPPLAPP'. There are also a number of Business Objects apps available. Another interesting app is SAP ECO Hub to browse trough the Eco Hub offerings.
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