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OSX on iPad

HappyDude20

HappyDude20

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
3,666
1,447
Los Angeles, Ca
This would be the only way i'd find myself in line when the iPad is released.

Do you think there would be a way to hack OSX onto the iPad?

Then again, I've never seen OSX on an iPod Touch or iPhone...

...But though I hate they didn't include a usb port, camera and all the other things many are upset about, having OSX on that would be great.
 
1

125037

Cancelled
Sep 10, 2007
2,121
0
How would you install it with no USB, SD, or Cd Drive.... Same way we jailbreak?
 
M

montblanc1

macrumors member
Jun 18, 2009
95
0
I don't think Mac OS is compatible with apple A4 chip, moreover, ipad is not powerful enough to run MAC OS.

Anyway, ipad is not a computer, just an oversized ipod, so don't even think about it
 
lee.anderson

lee.anderson

macrumors regular
Aug 28, 2006
158
0
UK
montblanc1 said:
I don't think Mac OS is compatible with apple A4 chip, moreover, ipad is not powerful enough to run MAC OS.

Anyway, ipad is not a computer, just an oversized ipod, so don't even think about it
Click to expand...

Yes, an oversized iPod; in the same way my Mac Pro is an oversized Mac Mini ;)
 
spinnerlys

spinnerlys

Guest
Sep 7, 2008
14,328
7
forlod bygningen
montblanc1 said:
I don't think Mac OS is compatible with apple A4 chip, moreover, ipad is not powerful enough to run MAC OS.

Anyway, ipad is not a computer, just an oversized ipod, so don't even think about it
Click to expand...

So an iPod is not a computer then?

Even the microwave next street has a computer inside, so why does an iPod not have one? Hmmmm.....
 
MisterMe

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
spinnerlys said:
This has been discussed before.

Current versions of Mac OS X are written for X86 CPUs and not the iPad's ARM CPU. So if someone can hack Mac OS X (write ARM binaries for the whole system) you may be good to go.

And the current Mac OS X version needs more processing power, thus the iPhone OS.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...c-unveiled---its-an-arm-cpu-and-the-gpu!.aspx
Click to expand...
Nonsense. The OP's premise is flawed. The iPhone OS is OS X. It is not MacOS X because the hardware is different. The original iPhone ran OS X 10.5 upon introduction before MacOS X 10.5 was introduced. The minimum requirements for MacOS X 10.5 include a 867 MHz PPC G4. MacOS X 10.6 is a cleaned-up and faster iteration of the OS. The processor in the iPad has a clock speed of 1 GHz SoC version of the ARM. What separates the iPad from Macs is the battery life, UI, and I/O. The notion that it doesn't have the power to run MacOS X is ridiculous.
 
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wodeh

macrumors regular
Nov 18, 2007
223
0
Norwich
Sheesh, I could have made some real money offering to install OSX on your fridge and toaster. But these guys had to come along and ruin a business potential with stark, ugly facts and cold, hard realities.

OSX will no more run on an iPad than Windows will run on the left testicle of a mountain goat.

Architectural and power differences aside the UI paradigm of OSX is vastly inferior from a touch perspective to that of the "enhanced" iPhone OS currently on the tablet.

Attempting to manipulate a windowing system driven by widgets that are typically smaller than, and would be obscured by, your finger would be like trying to type on a 1/100th scale typewriter with hollowed-out sausages jammed over your fingertips.
 
S

smiddlehurst

macrumors 65816
Jun 5, 2007
1,228
30
wodeh said:
Sheesh, I could have made some real money offering to install OSX on your fridge and toaster. But these guys had to come along and ruin a business potential with stark, ugly facts and cold, hard realities.

OSX will no more run on an iPad than Windows will run on the left testicle of a mountain goat.

Architectural and power differences aside the UI paradigm of OSX is vastly inferior from a touch perspective to that of the "enhanced" iPhone OS currently on the tablet.

Attempting to manipulate a windowing system driven by widgets that are typically smaller than, and would be obscured by, your finger would be like trying to type on a 1/100th scale typewriter with hollowed-out sausages jammed over your fingertips.
Click to expand...

This, for the love of god, THIS!

Seriously, have those complaining about not having desktop OS X put even a second of thought into it? You presumably have OS X available to you, just place a finger over the Airport icon and see how many other icons you're obscuring at the same time. Now imagine that on a 10" screen.... And even if they changed the OS you've still got every single app out there that's designed for a mouse and keyboard, they're never going to work on a screen that small with finger input no matter how much hardware you throw at it.
 
M

mtnDewFTW

macrumors 6502a
Oct 26, 2009
900
172
San Francisco, CA
Nope.
I would not want to use OS X on that display. Think of how small everything would be. And just how annoying it would be to use the top menu bar.
I'm glad they made a OS just for the iPad. I just wish the OS they made was better.
 
O

oneinamillion

macrumors newbie
Mar 18, 2010
1
0
OS X on iPad

Well.. I see two possibilities..

1) I am sure someone will come up with a GNOME Touch version so that you can install Linux on a jail-broken iPad.. That would work, assuming one can write drivers for the A4 GPU, the capacitive multi-touch screen and buttons (Home, volume, power).. The GNOME Touch theme could mimic somewhat OS X desktop and Apps with fattier widgets.

2) Write a mini vmware player for ARM, run Linux on it without drivers, then use an iPad X-Server (or VNC) to remote desktop to it. Slow, but that would give you a desktop to run a future GNOME Touch. I am running Linux on an old 366MHz PC with X Windows desktop and it works just fine..

Anyone up to the challenges? ;)

** edited ** Look at what I have found: http://blogs.gnome.org/carlosg/2010/01/29/multi-touch-support-in-linuxxorggtk/
 
GoKyu

GoKyu

macrumors 65816
Feb 15, 2007
1,169
23
New Orleans
What's funny is that when Steve first introduced the iPhone, he made a big deal of saying that it ran OS X. So was he lying? Or did he just mean that features of OS X were incorporated into what became known as "iPhone OS"?
 
W

WytRaven

macrumors 6502
Mar 19, 2009
353
0
Orbiting Mercury
miles01110 said:
No, it's not. It's in a category by itself.
Click to expand...

No offence intended whatsoever, seriously. However, sorry miles your are absolutely wrong and need to research why you are wrong before you further this complete myth.

iPhone OS is OS X. The differences between Mac OS and iPhone OS come down to drivers provided and frameworks available to programmers. The most obvious difference with frameworks is UIKit (iPhone OS) vs AppKit (Mac OS). The end result of this difference being an entirely different methodology of presentation and human interaction with regard to graphical user interface. On a more general level it means there are differences between how applications operate on the two variants.

There may now be some differences between the kernels of the two but as I cannot say without a doubt one way or the other I will not make that statement. What I can state as fact is that the kernels for both started from exactly the same place. My somewhat educated guess is that there is still no difference between them. I will leave a definitive answer on this last point up to those that have deeper knowledge than I on the subject.
 
eawmp1

eawmp1

macrumors 601
Feb 19, 2008
4,158
91
FL
OS X and Windows are desktop/laptop operating systems. The iPad is a new genre of computing device. You are interfacing with it and your data in a whole new way. You put Snow Leopard on the thing and it will FAIL miserably. Think of iPhone OS as "Snow Leopard Mobile" (shudders at the analogy).
 
S

shujin

macrumors member
Jul 22, 2006
82
0
MisterMe said:
Nonsense. The OP's premise if flawed. The iPhone OS is OS X. It is not MacOS X because the hardware is different. The original iPhone ran OS X 10.5 upon introduction before MacOS X 10.5 was introduced. The minimum requirements for MacOS X 10.5 include a 867 MHz PPC G4. MacOS X 10.6 is a cleaned-up and faster iteration of the OS. The processor in the iPad has a clock speed of 1 GHz SoC version of the ARM. What separates the iPad from Macs is the battery life, UI, and I/O. The notion that it doesn't have the power to run MacOS X is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Actually its not ridiculous. The ARM system architecture is based off of 32 registers that are 32 bits. It is similar to the MIPS architecture. The intel x86 architecture is 64 bit and has a lot more resources. Recourses being the amount of registers it has, its pipeline capabilities, amount of processor cache. The old PPC architecture is more similar to the x86 architecture then the ARM architecture is. ARM/MIPS are RISC type processors designed to save power, this is perfect for mobile applications. PPC/Intel was not originally designed for power saving it was designed for performance. The actually x86 instruction set (aka its assemble code) is far more capable and complex, currently it has over a thousand different instructions.

To sum up what I am saying. Yes if Apple wanted to they could write a compiler that would let os x run on an arm processor. It would be extremely slow and probably unusable. The performance of a computer is not based off of its frequency speed. There are a lot more variables that effect performance.
 
K

Ka Ora!

macrumors regular
Jan 23, 2009
154
0
HappyDude20 said:
Do you think there would be a way to hack OSX onto the iPad?


...But though I hate they didn't include a usb port, camera and all the other things many are upset about, having OSX on that would be great.
Click to expand...

I reckon the iPhone OS would fly on my Mac Pro, Although it would be tricky holding it to my head to answer calls. I thought Apple already had a portable device with OSX running on it:eek:
 
Sydde

Sydde

macrumors 68030
Aug 17, 2009
2,552
7,050
IOKWARDI
shujin said:
Actually its not ridiculous. The ARM system architecture is based off of 32 registers that are 32 bits. It is similar to the MIPS architecture. The intel x86 architecture is 64 bit and has a lot more resources. Recourses being the amount of registers it has, its pipeline capabilities, amount of processor cache. The old PPC architecture is more similar to the x86 architecture then the ARM architecture is. ARM/MIPS are RISC type processors designed to save power, this is perfect for mobile applications. PPC/Intel was not originally designed for power saving it was designed for performance. The actually x86 instruction set (aka its assemble code) is far more capable and complex, currently it has over a thousand different instructions.

To sum up what I am saying. Yes if Apple wanted to they could write a compiler that would let os x run on an arm processor. It would be extremely slow and probably unusable. The performance of a computer is not based off of its frequency speed. There are a lot more variables that effect performance.
Click to expand...

This is so entirely wrong in so many ways. The facts you present here are inaccurate and misleading. The key fact is that you say x86 is "more capable" because it has a larger instruction set - that is simply specious.

OS X has become CPU-neutral, it can run on just about anything Apple decides they want to run it on. If they chose to switch their entire product line to run on ARM, they could transition with five years, and very possibly even maintain good backward compatibility with x86.
 
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