More than a year ago MacCentral first reported that The Mathworks, Inc. wasn’t planning on porting its MATLAB product to Mac OS X. Unfortunately, that position hasn’t changed in the intervening months. This has prompted Kimo Johnson to create a petition to encourage The Mathworks, Inc. to get back into the Mac game.
The MATLAB on Mac OS X petition has already garnered more than 1,000 signatures since its inception, and MacCentral has heard from several readers (and petitioners) who would like to see a lot more added to the list.
“We, the undersigned, believe that a version of MATLAB should be released for Apple Computer’s latest operating system, MacOS X. The Macintosh is a powerful platform with many loyal users who need MATLAB’s unique environment for their research. This was true for the versions of the MacOS you supported in the past, and it is certainly true today. MacOS X is a fast and stable operating system that is similar in many ways to operating systems you currently support. By signing this petition, we are showing that there is a market for MATLAB on MacOS X. We ask you to consider our request,” said the petition.
The Mathworks Inc. bills MATLAB as “The Language of Technical Computing.” Support for the Macintosh version of MATLAB was dropped some time ago, but that hasn’t stopped users in the academic and scientific communities from continuing to pine for a Mac-native version of MATLAB.
The software provides users with mathematics and graphical tools to aid in data analysis, visualization, and algorithm and application development. It combines computation, graphics and visualization into a high-level programming language that sports over 500 mathematical, statistical, and engineering functions. MATLAB is used in academic, government and industrial work — The Mathworks, Inc. counts over 500,000 users.
If you’re interested in seeing MATLAB come to Mac OS X, there are no guarantees, but adding your name to this list of petitioners certainly couldn’t hurt.