osx for intel?

[Tommy!]

I was just wondering... If Mac OSx were to be ported to run on intel/equivelant machines, and you could buy it how many would ditch apple hardware and put OSX on PCs? Like an 1100 dollar compaq with a 1.7GHz P4, 512 megs of ram, an 80 gig hard drive, and a 16MB nVidia graphics card? not such a bad deal... :-/

[jefhatfield]

by putting OS X on a pc, i would ditch windows!

[al256]

If I put it on a P.C I would use an AMD processor. I would buy real Apple desktops but cheap P.C notebooks

[Ensign Paris]

Hi

We should avoid porting to Windows at all cost!

Wintel hardware sucks, the AMD processor is good but not as good os and PowerPC.

Guy

[jefhatfield]

it is not us porting to windows, but having OS X enlighten the great unwashed masses of the pc evil empire

a pc with OS X is one less pc with windows

a dollar made from apple hardware sales is a dollar earned for apple, inc. just like a dollar earned from a pc maker buying OS X for their machines is also a dollar earned for apple, inc

remember, apple is a business

go apple, inc!

[jefhatfield]

gates and co. did not get where they were selling mice and keyboards, they made their empire through software

when steve jobs was ousted from apple in the 80s, in his sometimes vulnerable fashion said, "My biggest mistake was not realizing that Apple was a software company first."

hindsight is 20-20, but just imagine where apple would be if it filled the shoes where microsoft stepped in when apple wouldn't port mac os (or whatever it was called then) to all the pc makers

compaq, dell, hp, ibm, toshiba, sony, e-machines, and the rest would be running OS 9 and OS X right now and apple would be the biggest software giant in the business and thus immensely richer

the profit margin for computer hardware in this industry is dismal, but the profit margin for software is amazing (something like 31% profit for microsoft)...so every dollar lost in a potential apple hardware purchase would be more than made up for in margin for the software sales and "sales" it would be...i mean, would you choose windows xp over os x?

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-08-2001 at 07:03 PM]

[Ensign Paris]

I am not meaning to sound "Un- Apple" like but I don't think I would like apple to be as big a Microsoft.

It is a special thing to use a Mac, lets not become evil empire 2.

[jefhatfield]

that's like being a baseball player on the arizona diamonbacks minor league farm team and turning down the opportunity to play in the big leagues and make more money because...the stadiums are so huge and it's less imtimate and i rather like riding on school buses and getting paid 20 thousand a year

[al256]

It would be hard to be a BIG, LOVE-ABLE company. I can't think of favorable monopoly but if Apple became one that truely would be "Different".

[SPG]

Would it really be the same experience? The screen might look like a mac, but would it act like a mac?
I think it would open up a whole slew of problems with interoperability.

[SPG]

Another question...Would any of the PC zealots even want it? I think that software compatibility and the number of titles available for Windoughs was one of their big motivators.

[al256]

How can we judge software that's in our imagination?

[al256]

My P.C friend loves the Mac OS but he's too poor to get a good Mac. He likes the fact that's run on UNIX. Yes he would run OS X if it was ported.

[jefhatfield]

XP is so dynamically different than windows me and windows 2000 that windows users have to almost relearn their os right now...so now would be the time to port os x since the windows world is in the "rebuilding and relearning stage" which i think will last for at least 18 months

apple is loveable now but i would also love them if they became really big

if microsoft can deal with compatibility issues then so can apple...it almost seems to be a birthright for apple to have the market...i mean, they invented the first "personal computer"

[sparkleytone]

XP is a downright good OS, no matter how many flames it will bring me. It's stable, easy to use, and clean. For me its too little too late and I've already moved on.

At the same time i have to respect m$ in some way shape or form for the sheer amount of hardware and broad range of companies they have to support "out of the box" in their OS. This is where Apple gains an advantage by maintaining such a tight control over its hardware.

OS X is where it's at. Past (UNIX/OS9) present (Linux/UNIX and Windows(sueme))and future (Mac/UNIX/BSD)are all represented in this OS and its beautiful. I love such an open base as opposed to clunky m$ code.


weeeeeee!

[jefhatfield]

sparkley,

two more posts! congrats

do you think apple's tight control over their hardware is still do-able and the company can at the same time port os x to intel...because they seem like different issues and one should not affect the other

this is definitely a crucial time for apple and they could gain some ground now that they have got good reviews consistently for os x

i don't see the fear people have of apple getting bigger...on the pc side, sony is huge yet they put out good computers and even if you don't like their computers, other products which they put out are still the most sought after in the electronics industry

for me, i don't like to be such a small minority that i have to buy my stuff from a catalog and not be able to get software at office depot or staples (in the catalog, it is not so easy to find out minimum requirements and hard disk space required for software titles)

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-08-2001 at 10:38 PM]

[davidc2182]

Listen brothers and sisters, I have seen the light, and the bulb it eminates from is a technicolor rainbow shaped like an Apple I'm a convert, I used an apple 2e, then a Pentium 166, then an AMD 1GHz, and now i've got my trusty go anywhere Ibook G3 500 MHz, and the wintel machine well its dusty :) I upgraded to XP a while back, noticed how much of an eyesore it could be, then went back to a bloated Millenium, even though its a giant leap for Wintel kind, its still at least 10 years away from anything Apple ever produced and at least 15 away from OS X.1, see with apple i never had to relearn anything when switching over, with wintel and XP i frankly didnt want to take the time to do so. Now, if they could port X to a wintel machine, which i'm sure they have done already, I would love it because it would mean my wintel was a mac :) and a 1GHz mac at that. Personally i think they should port it, and every quarter introduce a new i. device, like a camera with a HD that doubles as a webcam, or DV cam with a HD, etc. and there own browser for mac and PC, and let ipod function on pc along with itunes, and lets see how sales skyrocket, even gates said he wanted one. and all this should culminate in either a webtablet mac or a handheld that could blow away anything else out there. The one thing I dont like about MAC OS is the fact that even the dual 800's takes forever and a day to boot up compared to my pc with XP did, I dont know why open transport takes so long to process in 9.2, but speed is the factor to overcome, if you could get it running in 30 seconds, even 45, Itd be heaven and another thing someone answer me this in 10.1 when i goto system preferences and open up startup disk it takes like 15 - 30 seconds until i can close it after choosing 9.2. anyway enough ranting for me tonight and as a first timer i may have overstepped usual bounds here and there. G'night and thank the big guy up stairs someone is going to protect us from the devil, i mean bill gates :)

[DannyZR2]

CISC PROCESSOR.. bad

RISC PROCESSOR.. good

RISC CAN DO CISC
CISC CAN NOT DO CISC...

[benmac]

I don't think Apple would sell many computers if we could use Mac OS X on an Intel or AMD processor. Therefore, Apple will have to stop producing harware, make it cheaper or make it even more innovative to make people still want to buy them.

[sparkleytone]

hahahahahahahahaha Danny roflroflrofl.



(looking for #30 :-/ )

[davidc2182]

As Steve Jobs once said, Apple is a software company first, hardware is second. i mean hell look where the devil, i mean Billy Gates got without selling computers, 100 billion dollar personal net worth, shouldnt there be some kind of law against being that wealthy, think about all the people that could be helped with just one billion of that money, but no i'm gonna live in the woods in a supercool house and be a nerd!

[Edited by davidc2182 on 11-09-2001 at 11:12 AM]

[spikey]

I dont understand danny.

Processors are not like RISC Vs CISC anymore, they borrow parts off each other. macs lean towards RISC more than PCs, but they do not use a RISC processor.

Processors are alot more similar than what they used to be in the RISC/CISC debate.

Maybe i have misunderstood what you have said, i am not sure.

[spikey]

I wouldnt ditsch apple hardware for pc hardware. I would though buy OSX for my PC. And when i had the money i would buy a new mac.

But i do know that %80 of my PC friends would buy OSX if it was good on the PC, because they are so impressed with it on the mac.

And anyway, selling software like that right now would jeapordise the sales of the G5. It looks like apple will move a hell of a way in the next year.

Maybe one day but not today.

[Disdain]

I have heard of this before their use to be a site devoted to getting osx for intel i don't know if it still around though, perhaps it is. all i can say is if those pc users want osx then they should have to get a mace to do so, with the g5 i am sure many devoted pc users will change over. so if you are some whining ass like the people on the site who where demanding apple made osx available for intel users then you can go shove it is all i can say

[MACST3R]

FROM DAVID...::
....i mean Billy Gates got without selling computers, 100 billion dollar personal net worth, shouldnt there be some kind of law against being that wealthy....
------------------------
I don't know by all respect whats in some peoples mind. Isn't the US a country of freedom? Why would you take away the fruit of this man. He worked hard for being in this position. True, Windows ain't my favorite but also i don't care. I do care about the mac society and the stuff whats coming up.

So much for this post!

And putting Mac OS in a PC? That really does sound stupid. Why would i buy a BMW and put its engine in a Toyota?????

Apple rules!
MACST3R™

[jefhatfield]

the porting os x to intel site is actually mostly mac users who realize the future is software (like jobs claims), not hardware

with a smaller initial manufacturing cost, the software, apple can make a huge profit margin by selling OS X to intel machines

high profit margins result in an overall strong net profit

remember, apple is a business

go apple, inc.

[jefhatfield]

think of the pcs out there as the cars with whatever type of standard engine

...os x is the gasoline and apple is the supplier!

go apple, inc.

[SPG]

What if Apple made a Mac-like OS just for PC's? It would run all the windows compatible applications but in more of a Mac look and feel. PC users would experience some of what we've had, and if they were really hooked they could go out and buy a G5 and the real Mac OS.
Is it possible? Would it work? Is it worth trying?

[spikey]

Its clever
I suppose it could demonstrate the power of OSX without giving them a the real OS.

I wonder how many people would hate apple for luring PC consumers though.

[jefhatfield]

sj said apple is a software company first

os x finally proved that with the attention and press apple gave it and continues to give it

whether a pc os made by apple makes pc users switch over or not hardware-wise is a plus if it happens, but the money made by apple in software profit margin already gains money for apple

the money in IT is increasingly in software, not hardware...or at least not in computers since the tight competition slaughters the profit margin where as software still enjoys a huge profit margin and will hopefully continue to

sure a computer costs more at the store than an os but effortwise and time and materials-wise, software is what really pays off

like someone mentioned on these posts before, bill gates managed to make a fortune without building computers...and all that during the personal computer revolution

[oldMac]

Ignoring the issues of:

1) Porting the OS to run on x86 (not trivial)
2) Providing a PPC emulation environment on x86 for compatibility with PPC-native apps (esp. not trivial)
3) Asking all Mac developers to port their software to OS X on x86 while still supporting PPC hardware, as well (incredibly difficult and expensive)

Then there is the *BIG* issue...

Let's assume that you can buy either:

a) An Apple machine to run OS X
b) An x86-based machine to run OS X

Apple generally makes about 25% profit on their "average" machine that sells for about $1500. That's $375 of profit on each machine.

To maintain profit margins, Apple would have to charge $375 per copy of OS X. How many PC purchasers would be willing to pay $375 for the benefits of OS X (that won't run their existing software)?

Of course this can be made up if the volume is there, but somehow I doubt that PC users would immediately start ditching all their compatibility in a rush to OS X.

Then, consider how many copies of OS X may be pirated? Apple doesn't currently have to consider pirating of the Mac OS, because you can't buy a Macintosh without paying for the OS up-front. That's a whole new potential problem for Apple to deal with.

Personally, I think Apple should eventually move to x86 compatible processors and provide a Windows compatibility layer based upon the open-source WINE project.

However, Apple first needs to:

1) Give the software companies a rest to recover from the OS 9 -> OS X transition.

2) Diversify its revenue stream (so that it's not completely dependent upon number of Apple boxes shipped)

3) Reduce the complexity/costs of making Macs and PCs live in harmony.

4) Increase demand for Apple machines by lowering prices and increasing value.

This transition, if pursued by Apple, would take at least 5 years to execute successfully.

The first area where Apple could pursue this in an experimental fashion, would be in providing an Apple server solution for x86-based servers. (This could happen much faster than desktops.)


[Edited by oldMac on 11-12-2001 at 02:16 PM]

[jefhatfield]

so software development costs money, you would know better than me

...but that does not change the longterm trend of software gaining prominence every day in the high tech field

maybe apple needs to try x86 server based os solutions first, but they have to eventually move forward

pc hardware is getting cheaper by the month and this is constantly driving prices of pc hardware down which, in turn, is bringing down the prices of macs

as prices come down, so will the margin of profit for hardware (it is a continuing trend)...in the earliest days of IT, hardware profit margins were several times what it is now when the competition was not around...it was not long ago when san jose was orchards but those days may have well been a hundred years ago!

os x was probably a very expensive and lengthy process but it probably was at least as important as the imac was a few years ago

microsoft cannot stop apple porting os x to intel because they are standing a thin ice right now with the monopoly actions of their past and by the way...who do you think owns more stock in apple than bill gates and microsoft?

it could only help bill gates if os x, and thus apple, does well in the future and ports to intel

it is no loger apple against big brother and the major corporations of the IT field...we need super giants ibm and motorola (for chips) and hp (for printers)

ibm's via voice is a top rated mac software and office:mac by microsoft is more and more important for us mac users, too

...porting os x to intel and amd may not happen this year, or next, or the next...but apple cannot continue on (very successfully) if they are to ignore the "other 95 percent of the market

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-12-2001 at 03:11 PM]

[jefhatfield]

i don't have an exact timeline when i think os x should port to intel and amd

...but some of the "anti-big guy" thinking that helped make mac a revolution in 1984 colors the thinking of some mac techs i know today

they will say things like, "no one buys office:mac from microsoft", "those sales figures are fake", "bill gates pays off the press", etc...

...or "ibm only partially funded the G3 but motorola only makes the G3 chip and ibm and apple have nothing to do with each other anymore"

...or "bill gates and microsoft only put 150 million into apple as a one time investment in the 90s and apple really was not doing badly"

...or "apple really does not only have 5 or 10 percent of the market" but "they really are the number one selling computer"

now, i am not against wishful thinking for apple, but burying one's head in the sand and thinking that apple is some non-profit for our artistic enjoyment is simply not true

apple has made bigger failures than they have successes and the stock value points that out, so continuing to live in this "i am an island onto myself" thinking, especially in IT, is not what apple needs right now or in their future

am i am not advocating that apple become just another pc maker because apple still makes the best computer with the best operating system

[davidc2182]

yes MACST3R this is a country of freedom where everyone can do whatever they damn well please, including steal major ideas from a competitor which is what microcrap did with apple they saw the os, they stole the ideas, and tried to make something of it, yes gates is a marketing genius, which is the only reason why he has become so successful, even with windoze being as crappy as it is popular. I used to use windows as a power user, and i dealt with crashes, formatting, and all that other crap, on my ibook, it will occasionally crash from IE or netscape, but thats the only reason. My pc is a game and music devoted machine right now, which is all pcs are good for anyway. Lets take a look shall we at the history, Apple creates the macintosh, gates competes by BUYING DOS and lying all the way through with IBM that they had it. Next 16 bit windows, crap! incredibly difficult to use. next a bloated 32 bit version called 95 with a task bar and icons on the right hand side, looks familiar. This was the next logical step, then came 98 and 98SE, now with a program called 98lite you could remove the core integration of IE with the os. integration in the first place was a stupid move, gee yeah lets make our shell, which is what windows is, its not an OS, lets make our GUI shell run on top of dos, which they bought, then lets integrate the incredible instability of the internet with it and make everyone crash at least once a day. then ME just a bloated revision of 98 which took forever to load, and still had a basic version of dos underlying it. during this time they had windows nt and 2000 out, which were much more stable but not good for home users. so they merge the 2 and come out with xp, fisher price crappy interface. dos is gone anything doslike you see is the BIOS which is designed to look like dos, however now they emulate dos through XP hence the stability of the OS because XP is actually an OS based on a decent kernel. so now windows is at the point where apple was with their first os, because its their first actual OS. and the underlying portion of this whole thing is that he outright stole the idea, the design, and maybe even some code directly from Apple OS. meanwhile Apple had been inspired by Xerox's division who came up with a GUI originally, but the mac os is more than a gui, its a complete OS whose interface is a GUI and its gonna take 10 years for windoze to get where os X.1 is today. And if their not carefull they may be defunct by their own errors or pulled apart by the courts, because its a frickin monopoly which is illegal, and the money he earned, was from lying, cheating, and stealing, along with marketing. So I wonder , how much is that money worth now, how well does he sleep at night knowing exactly what he's done.

[SPG]

Saw Bill a few weeks ago over in Bellevue, he looked well rested.

[davidc2182]

looks like money can buy everything, even sleep.

[jefhatfield]

i don't know about you, but if i had that much money, i would be so worried about losing it or mismanaging it, it would affect MY sleep

i don't think i would like charges thrown against me and my company that sound a tad bit bigger than your regular misdemeanor if you know what i mean and have uncle sam after you on and off for years

i guess that is what makes bill gates chairman and little old me his field techie

[joey j]

davidc2182>100 billion dollar personal net worth,

On paper.


davidc2182>shouldnt there be some kind of law against being that wealthy,

No.


davidc2182>think about all the people that could be helped with just one billion of that money,

... and if there _was_ 'some kind of law against being that wealthy', there'd be no-one wealthy enough to GIVE AWAY one billion dollars, because they'd be legally prohibited from GETTING IT in the first place.

How would Gates realize that much money? By selling his shares. How would he sell them when no-one'd be wealthy enough to BUY THEM from him?


davidc2182>but no i'm gonna live in the woods in a supercool house and be a nerd!

Nothing wrong with being a nerd. I'm a nerd ... narf ... or living in a supercool house ...


spikey> Processors are not like RISC Vs CISC anymore, they borrow parts off each other. macs lean towards RISC more than PCs,

Modern x86s are load/store (read: RISC) processors with an x86 (-> native ISA) instruction translator onboard. PPCs are relatively complex as far as RISC designs go but still preserve most of the aspects we know and love.


spikey> but they do not use a RISC processor.

referring to PPCs or x86s? hardly, either way. the old-fashioned CISC idea is dead. You can do nifty things for backwards compat like intel and amd have, but given that the last pure-cisc x86 was the 386, i think it's safe to say that cisc died a long time ago.



can we kill these moronic os x on x86 threads now?

[jefhatfield]

this thread is definitely getting old since there will always be people on both sides of the os x to intel issue but the "isssue" does not look like its going to die among a lot of mac users

it's not really a moronic issue any more than any other issue, posters bring up different ideas and issues and it's not an attempt at approacing a mac lockstep type of pholosophy, but more a diverse set of views by actually thinking differently, to borrow a term

i remember some so-called moronic (or attacked as such) rumors about something called a cube and more recently about something many said was too big to be what the current ipod is right now, but very predictably, people are warming up to the ipod after a blasting of criticism at its introduction

sometimes i get tired of hearing about bluetooth, newton, or the cube, but there are still a lot of people on both sides of those issues, too

i like the idea of os x to intel and think it's worth at least a try but there is certainly a big question mark about if it is possible at a reasonable cost and if pc users will buy it...maybe the cost of bringing os x to intel is more than apple could shoulder right now with the need to at least break 1 GHz on the open market, which has been a magic selling point for consumers (however ridiculous advanced users and techs may say that is)

bill gate's entire worth is not all on paper being that he is incredibly diversified, yet not as much as paul allen, who looked like a financial genius with his ventures into transmeta and WAN technology, but lately that does not look too hot like it did just a few months ago

for bill gates to liquify everything he has would hurt microsoft and to sell his stocks would not make sense...but he doesn't have to sell them all to ONE rich person who is "rich enough" per se, many, many normal people could be rich enough to buy him out piece by piece

and the 100 million amount is not likely a current figure since it may be actually closer to a little more than half that according to fortune magazine, but when one is that rich, it is very hard to know any accurate amount

there should not be laws against bill gates' wealth, but there are some laws against how he got it in the first place and this is what the courts are still duking out

i agree with some stuff and disagree with other stuff i hear every day on macrumors, and it's good no two posters are the same, i am glad that you mentioned and clarified the RISC CISC thing because some people still see things like the 386 and believe the pc world is wallowing there

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-13-2001 at 10:25 AM]

[spikey]

Yes joey, that is what i said. albeit quite badly.

there is no such thing as CISC anymore.
And RISC also doesnt apply to the G4, because cpus have become more complex there is no such thing as Reduced Instruction.
Both PC processors and Mac processors try to get the both of best worlds.

Although yes the G4 still leans towards RISC more than the average Pc cpu does.

[spikey]

I was referring to macs not using RISC processors, and they dont.
No such thing as RISC, i saw somewhere the G4 being described as post-RISC. I think thats a pretty good description.

[jefhatfield]

the first time i saw anything on a pc processor having something to do with risc was on the amd website and i think they were talking about the k6-2 or k6-2 plus but i am sure the last cisc processor was a while ago

wow, is the G4 post-risc?

[TiMacLover]

Naw Mac OS X is Good On A Mac. Well they kinda allready ported it with intel its called Rhapsody. Which I have :)

[spikey]

Yeah the last CISC processor was a long time ago, a friend told me the 486 was the last. But im not sure whether to believe him because he talks *****.

Well, post-RISC is a good description if you ask me.

There isnt such a thing as RISC or CISC anymore really, just some CPUs lean towards either of them.

Although i hear servers are very RISC like, Jef is that true?

I hope this ends the stupid RISC/CISC debate once and for all. I am tired of seeing people not understanding something that is irrelevant and doesnt exist anymore.

[jefhatfield]

many pc techs call mac chips risc anyway and many mainframe servers have motorola ppc chips in them so i can see where that comes from

i saw something on motos website...because only a portion of motos chips are for macs...they are a huge company

[mac15]

sounds O.K

but it has to be written to take advantage of the intel chips and AMD chips

But would PC companys make DP for the new version




NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[subgang]

I was a devout Mac user for years. Finally I wanted to make the move from design to programming, and my Mac was useless. No way to learn ASP, JSP or Cold Fusion...the Apple MPW is far too massive and intimidating. No equivalent of Visual Studio or other IDE. (Sorry, CodeWarrior doesn't cut it).

So I made the switch, and not only are there zillions of tools available for programming on the PC, many of them are available for free or as shareware. Resources for writing software abound on the PC so much more than Macs it's not even funny.

But now, OS-X! java! Free dev tools and an IDE! J2EE and Apache! If an OS-X port to x86 is not on the bill for Steve Jobs' 2-hour keynote, I'd be seriously let down. OS-X's only MAJOR flaw is available software. This is the only way to get more programmers developing for the OS. And UNIX programmers are among the most intense, devoted, and talented coders you would ever want.

[networkman]

i couldn't agree more!!!

the unix coders (and also mac coders) have been more dedicated to the joy of bringing their fields forward more than my peers on the pc side who see it more as a way to make money and/or collect a paycheck

did everybody see what apple said today on their website?

this is the biggest hint i have seen so far from apple suggesting a port of os x to intel

i mean, come on, os x is in a "pc" language, so to speak in "general" terms for the benefit of the people not in the IT field, and that does not make it any less mac than before and porting os x to intel could only mean money for apple which is crucial, especially since the wall street journal said this week that apple is ready to hit the skids financially

...come on, we need to see apple inc as a business and not as some non profit small club/cult which could run on enthusiasm and some star wars type of rebellion mythology

we don't need revisionist history of the computer business and always trying to put a good spin on a bad situation like apple is famous for in financial circles and business schools

this period for apple is "do or die" as evidenced by compaq, webvan.com, and the net revolution in the valley

apple had its chances with the g4 but didn't get it off the ground quick enough, and they had their chances with os x, and they had the momentum of the imac, ibook, tibook, and new ibook, but only to lose a huge surge on income to indifference by the general public

apple has no problem dazzling critics with their product, but the follow up business opportunities have always eluded this company time and time again

port to os x already!

[dantec]

If they really want to port Mac OS 10 to intel, do it with partner ships... Make it only run on IBM's & Sony's. Who wants that Dell crap?

[networkman]

just ibm and sony would be a cool start and bring in billions or 100s of millions in gross revenue to apple (resulting in many millions in net profit thus putting apple past the danger zone wall street seems to see the company at)...a rosy forecast though

but after that, of course, the sky would be the limit and maybe apple could start talking about a pre-1981 market share of personal computers

[SPG]

Well here's another take...
"to boldly go where no PC has gone before"
Macworld Expo...Duh. MACworld, get it? MAC-world? It's a show all about Macs, ya know? No PC's there? Get it?
Okay, that might not be it but aaaaaanyway, I have a sneaky suspicion that the next OSX will run PC software like the emulator runs classic. OSX 10.2 Buy a Mac and bring all your old software with you!
One less reason for the other 95% not to buy a mac, but a good reason for the software companies not to write for the Mac.

[subgang]

There's something I'm not getting here.

I'm getting the impression that Apple users do not want OS-X to be ported to PC's. I might be (and hope) that I'm wrong, but if that really is the general consensus, then why?

If that's the case, I'll just chalk it up to being a designer's/MP3 fan's operating system to run only on "boutique" hardware.

[Durandal7]

The only way this would ever happen is in a last-ditch effort to avert Apple from bankruptcy.

[networkman]

for a graphics pro and some others, the mac is the standard tool, not a boutique item

but for the other 95 percent of the masses, unless apple gets over 1 ghz and drops their prices (starting at $599.00), macs will be seen as a specialty item or boutique item

whether the new os x could read pc software via an emulator or mac os ports to pc, apple needs to branch out beyond five percent of the market, even if their ultimate goal is still only 20 percent at the most

it is cool being elite, but not to the point where some posters here and analysts in the financial world are always questioning the survival of apple

[Unregistered]

Ok folks! If Mac is concerned about losing their hardware market raise the price for the Intel version of the OS. Da! Make it $250.00 vs. the Mac version which is what $125.00 and if that doesn't work raise it some more. Gee, let me think 125.00 additional profits per OS sold sounds like a pretty healthy thing to me. Oh yes don't forget you could charge extra for the support on an Intel cha ching! It is a business after all. Its a field of gold lying before Apple will they jump the fence to rake it up? I doubt it!

Ok, what to do with MS the mother ship. Microsoft won't take it lying down I assure you it will do something. Will they yank the office product? If they thought apple was going to threaten their monopoly oh yes in a min. However there is just too much business software out there for the MS OS to loose any serious ground. Much like Linux most of the sales would go to the curios by stander who would like to see what it was all about. And then when they needed to run the office accounting system or their resource management software they would flip the switch and return to Microsoft’s monopoly.

Still the curious have money!

[evildead]

Why? Mac Hardware is the best and Apple OS is the best. Why would you want anything else???? Mabye porting OS X over to a Sun sytem... now that would be nice. (but not going to happen)

[dantec]

I agree with evildead...

[networkman]

it's about the money honey

some people ditched apple when microsoft started pushing their mac version of office and apple opened their door to ms letting them make ie and outlook the standard default....they say that steve jobs sold out to microsoft and maybe he did but he really had no choice

apple is not doing as bad as they could be doing, but they are just a step away from needing desperation measures if the new imac fails and if it were up to the posters here, the imac would bomb but the media is nicer to the imac2 than we have been

steve jobs is not a great businessman but he is not 100 percent artist and dreamer either...i would give that title to steve wozniak, but sj would port os x to intel if he knew it would save apple

jobs will not let apple sink because of an "ideal" and competing with a sociopathic bill gates is hard and sometimes steve jobs' own sociopathic side seems justified to compete against a man like gates

sometimes i see steve jobs as our "sadaam hussein" tin horn dictator fighting against "their" ayatollah who is bill gates...the IT field is one dirty war that has brought the unfair to a new level of the absurd

[dantec]

someone who met BG... He said he really had his nose stuck up in the air... like he ruled the world...

If there was any justice in this world... Ben laden would target Bill's home (without hurting anyone else...)... Maybe we can let Bush and his terrorist campaign take care of that...

Osama bin Gates... Murderer of the Mac OS!:eek:

[spikey]

Well how about instead of porting OSX to intel, why dont you give OSX GUI & extras to linux. That would help destroy microsoft, give PC users a taste of OSX, and persuade them to switch to mac hardware.
You would be surprised how many people want to use Linux, and if it wasnt for being a little un-user friendly then they would.
(Purely theoretical)

As for OSx for intel, it depends how jobs sees apple. If he sees apple as a software company first then he should port it, and concentrate on selling it as software for the Pc (not being bothered about people using PCs).

If he sees apple as both a hardware and software company then he would only port it if it would benefit the sales of mac hardware. (tempting PC users to apple hardware by porting OSX.)

If he sees apple as primarily a hardware company then he probably wouldnt port it over. It would be too big a risk to take. And with the launch of the G5 later this year then he would use the G5 to tempt PC users over to the mac platform, as opposed to taking a big risk of porting OSX to do the same thing.



Personally i think it is to hard to make an OSX for PC, and it would take too much investment. Too big a risk. Which is why i suggested the Linux thing.

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by networkman
(snip)jobs will not let apple sink because of an "ideal" and competing with a sociopathic bill gates is hard and sometimes steve jobs' own sociopathic side seems justified to compete against a man like gates(snip)

Uhm... What field does Apple actually compete with Microsoft in? Design would be my guess. Apple makes em, Microsoft rapes em (poor yellow ducky... some know what I mean by this). There's not really any competition between the two companies though. Windows cant be installed by itself on Macintosh computers (as far as i know) nor MacOS on PCs.

BTW, Gates istn the Ayatollah... I would expect you mac users to know more than anyone else that Microsoft is the 4th reich! Want proof? Go to www.wincustomize.org and tell me the logo at the top left DOESNT look like a multicolored swastika.

----------------------
~A perceptive Windozer

[Unregistered]

Well, just as an interjection, from a BSD/Linuxhead perspective...

I would so love to run OSX. It is clean and lovely and essentially BSD. Darwin will work on an x86 machine. I want a new mac, but then again I want a beowulf cluster as well. It is lovely (and economical) to buy stipped down PC(x86) parts and turn them into one big 4 node cluster (for under $2000). If you are really slick, get a 2 processer Tyan Athalon board in each, putting 20 1.5GHz x86 processors in the cannon... (for under $3500). A linux hacker would love this.... It would take up a desk, but it would scream... Wine project (www.winehq.org) is getting rather slick and runs 90% of all windows programs natively (more if you import genuine windows dlls). With clack about WineX... we are talking about 95% of all Win32 apps... which is everything but a few apps only for NT and a few only for XP. So realisticly OSX/BSD/Linux (basicly Unix in general) has the capablities with a little tweaking to run common windows apps. Wine is pretty speedy too, IMHO.

XDarwin is out... and runs well, by all accounts. So all BSD (even graphical Gnome apps) will run on OSX with a little work. BSD (and I assume Darwin, since is a mildly tweaked FreeBSD kernel) can run most Linux *binaries* without incident.

So a BSD hacker could run on an OSX box:
All OSX apps
All legacy Mac Apps
All BSD Apps (concievably... unless it something specific w/ x86... a ppc version would work nicely).

However if there was a way to put Aqua and Carbon, etc etc on top of an x86 compiled Darwin... then you would have a box that could:
Emulate ppc archieture to run Mac Apps.
Run all BSD Apps
Run most linux Apps
Run many windows Apps
...and still be slick as MacOSX

I think that would be rad.

[ilikeiBook]

Mac OS X on Intel would be great for Apple's software department but wouldn't be good for hardware. It might help Apple though... but it could mean doom.