Microsoft Surface Pro Hacked to Run OS X...Maybe

[MacRumors]

Pureinfotech links (via Neowin) to a YouTube video claiming to show a 'Hackintosh' Surface Pro running OS X Mountain Lion. The new Surface Pro tablet, which runs full Windows 8, launched earlier this month starting at $899.

Comments on the YouTube video are largely skeptical, suggesting that it's simply a remote desktop connection to a Mac. However, there's no technical reason why a Surface Pro shouldn't be able to run a hacked version of OS X, and Neowin notes that Wi-Fi reportedly is not working on the machine. One of the main challenges with Hackintosh installations tends to be with drivers for functions like Wi-Fi, so its absence may lend some support to the legitimacy of the claim.

Article Link: Microsoft Surface Pro Hacked to Run OS X...Maybe

[milo]

Cool that someone pulled it off but I don't really see the practical appeal when you compare it with say a Macbook Air, in terms of price, battery life, etc.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by milo

Cool that someone pulled it off but I don't really see the practical appeal when you compare it with say a Macbook Air, in terms of price, battery life, etc.

1, much higher screen resolution

2, definitely higher-quality screen tech (IPS vs standard LCD - some comparative pics between the iPad4's IPS screen and that of the Pro are at http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Mi...-iPad-4_id3249 - as one can see, the Pro's screen quality is excellent.)

3, full, no-compromise Windows, as opposed to Apple's dumbing down Boot Camp by, among other things, not allowing NOT to use gfx acceleration to allow for better battery life / cooler operation. (This isn't that big a problem with Airs, which lack a dual-standard setup. Much bigger a problem on MBP's.)

4, touch screen AND Wacom pen support - much more to be used for (e.g., making notes in a PDF file with an, as opposed to capacitive pens, decent pen).

[aristotle]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

1, much higher screen resolution

2, definitely higher-quality screen tech (IPS vs standard LCD - some comparative pics between the iPad4's IPS screen and that of the Pro are at http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Mi...-iPad-4_id3249 - as one can see, the Pro's screen quality is excellent.)

1. In what universe is 1920 X 1080 a higher resolution than 2048 X 1536? In what world is PPI: 207.82 higher than PPI: 264?

2. I looked at the pictures and the iPad screen had more vivid colours. Are you trying to tell us that LCD is better than IPS panels found in the iPad, the Thunderbolt display, the new iMacs and the retina macbook pros?

How much is Microsoft paying to lie about specs?

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

3, full, no-compromise Windows, as opposed to Apple's dumbing down Boot Camp by, among other things, not allowing NOT to use gfx acceleration to allow for better battery life / cooler operation. (This isn't that big a problem with Airs, which lack a dual-standard setup. Much bigger a problem on MBP's.)

Ok, this proves that you have never used boot camp or you are deliberately trying to mislead people on here.

I have used boot camp to dual boot into windows on my iMac and before that on an early 2006 Macbook pro before I gave it to a relative.

Bootcamp is simply a source of drivers for windows and a partition magic type of partitioning tool for dividing your hard drive to include a windows partition. It is not virtualization or emulation. When you install windows onto that partition, it is not dumbed down. If something is not working, it is because of a lack of drivers. Don't expect windows 8 to work right away but Windows 7 should install just fine and run ok IF you install the drivers Apple provided in the boot camp wizard. You should have saved those drivers to a DVD or USB stick to use after you had installed windows 7.

Liar, liar pants on fire.

[SteveW928]

Originally Posted by aristotle

You must be using some sort of "new" math because less than 4 hours (probably around 3.5 hours running windows 8 and considerably less running a hacked OS X without proper drivers) is a lot less than 5 hours quoted for the 11" macbook air or 7 hours for the 13" macbook air.

The funny thing about that is that if I had to name my top two reasons for switching from my OSX laptop to iPad, they would be 1) Battery life, and 2) Instant on into a OS designed for mobility. The Surface pro, running OSX or Win8 is neither (or at least not any better than the Surface in that regard).

Originally Posted by aristotle

In what universe is 1920 X 1080 a higher resolution than 2048 X 1536? In what world is PPI: 207.82 higher than PPI: 264?

And, what was really funny was the talk about gfx acceleration. Aside from being challenged by mathematics and physics, I think this person doesn't have a very good grasp on computer hardware either. Hopefully he/she reads this before running out to buy Maya for their new Surface Pro.

[Giuly]

Originally Posted by SteveW928

Instant on into a OS designed for mobility

When you flip the screen up on MacBook that is factory-equipped with an SSD - what happens? I might have missed that BIOS screen and copying of the complete RAM from the SSD (which should be completed by the time you've completely flipped open the screen anyways)

It's not like the the Surface Pro does magic, it's just a Windows netbook with a digitizer, a detachable keyboard, an older-gen SSD (which, if you ask me, should've been made user-replaceable if they use mSATA anyways. But to Microsoft a kickstand that resembles a car door seems more valuable than the development of a 'push-in'n'pop-out' or caddy system for mSATA) and EFI.

They should've just developed something akin to OS X fat binaries, released in as ARM only, and tell you that 'If it won't be updated to support ARM, it is so old that the x86 compatibility layer will run it just fine'.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by SteveW928

And, what was really funny was the talk about gfx acceleration. Aside from being challenged by mathematics and physics, I think this person doesn't have a very good grasp on computer hardware either. Hopefully he/she reads this before running out to buy Maya for their new Surface Pro.

If I were you, I'd do the homework before ridiculing and attacking others. For example, the question of obligatory use (it in no way can be disabled) of discrete gfx acceleration under Boot Camp, which can NOT be disabled, to the "delight" of everyone wanting as good battery life and silent operation as possible.

Some threads you should read (instead of just ridiculing others who know a lot more about OS X than you):

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=585949

http://www.doitscared.com/1466/setup...fat-partition/

an excerpt from the latter article to give you some numbers (bold emphasizing by me):

"I recently got a mid 2012 Macbook Pro 15in laptop. It came with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion which I promptly upgraded to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. I then installed Windows 7 Boot Camp on it. I thought I had the perfect setup.

To my dismay, I found that while the Macbook lasted 6 hours or more while running Mac OS X, the Windows 7 lasted at best 3 hours. The reason for the short battery and heat (the laptop got very hot under Windows) was that under Windows, the discrete graphics card was active all the time! The Boot Camp 4.0 drivers for Windows did not support switching graphics between the integrated and discrete video cards, but instead used discrete all the time."

Finally, as far as (let me cite you) "being challenged by mathematics and physics, I think this person doesn't have a very good grasp on computer hardware either" is concerned, see my answers below, particularly on the Air's screen resolution, which is, unfortunately, still much-much lower than that of SP, let alone the iPad 3 / 4.



----------

Originally Posted by aristotle

1. In what universe is 1920 X 1080 a higher resolution than 2048 X 1536? In what world is PPI: 207.82 higher than PPI: 264?

So, does the Air have a 2048 X 1536 screen? REALLY? I compared the Surface Pro's screen to that of the MB Air as we've talking about them all the time.

Originally Posted by aristotle

2. I looked at the pictures and the iPad screen had more vivid colours. Are you trying to tell us that LCD is better than IPS panels found in the iPad, the Thunderbolt display, the new iMacs and the retina macbook pros?

1, The SP has an IPS panel, unlike the Air (or any MBP).

2, Let met cite the article I've linked to:

"Now this is where it gets interesting, since the two have stunning looking displays over most of the crop. Still, the more we look at them, the biggest differentiator is the slightly more detailed and stronger brightness output of the iPad 4’s 9.7-inch 1536 x 2048 IPS-LCD based Retina Display, which produces the higher pixel density if 264 ppi. Honestly, from a far distance away, it’s nearly indistinguishable to meticulously notice its finer details, but nonetheless, it’s evident upon closer inspection. Taking a gander at the Surface Pro’s 10.6-inch 1080 x 1920 IPS LCD display, it’s still attractive on many fronts, but it doesn’t have enough to steer us away from the Retina Display of the iPad 4."

As you can see, not even the article does state the iPad has better colors. And it's pretty futile to compare a non-IPS screen (that of the Air) to an IPS screen (that of the iPad or the SP) - IPS is WAAAAY better in every respect. (Except for the somewhat decreased battery life.)

How much is Microsoft paying to lie about specs?

How much Apple is paying you for spreading lies?

Ok, this proves that you have never used boot camp or you are deliberately trying to mislead people on here.

I did in my late 2009 17" MBP and suffered a lot from the discrete gfx (overheating, ridiculous battery life etc.). Have tried and read everything to find out how I could switch to integrated gfx. Let me know if you do know how I can switch to using integrated gfx on my MBP - I'll pay you a beer at least.

Bootcamp is simply a source of drivers for windows and a partition magic type of partitioning tool for dividing your hard drive to include a windows partition. It is not virtualization or emulation. When you install windows onto that partition, it is not dumbed down. If something is not working, it is because of a lack of drivers. Don't expect windows 8 to work right away but Windows 7 should install just fine and run ok IF you install the drivers Apple provided in the boot camp wizard. You should have saved those drivers to a DVD or USB stick to use after you had installed windows 7.

1. You can't disable discrete graphics under Windows 7 either. (Or under any Windows version.)

2. Apple culd have come up with a way to let users use integrated graphics - after all, Macs are all Apple's products (no need to develop drivers for thousands of different hardware models.) They failed to do that (too).

Liar, liar pants on fire.

If I'm a liar, then, you're absolutely incompetent and know absolutely nothing about OS X, spreading lies and are on Apple's payroll.

[chainprayer]

Safari seems... sluggish

[aarond12]

Wow! Finally a reason to buy a Microsoft Surface!

[soundr]

Originally Posted by chainprayer

Safari seems... sluggish

yup

----------

Originally Posted by retroneo

It seems there are no Mac drivers for the Marvell Avastar 350N in the Surface Pro - so it won't have any WiFi unless you plug an external WiFi dongle into the USB 3.0 port.

You might be able to use Bluetooth tethering to your iPhone instead however.

good idea

----------

Originally Posted by Marx55

Apple should make a light (400 to 600 g) Mac, as small as possible and whih whatever form factor (clamshell, slider or tablet). Great for Keynote and PowerPoint presentations. The Mac in your pocket. Always.

meh

----------

Originally Posted by Renzatic

That's the thing about the Pro and the iPad. They're both equal halves of the one perfect tablet. The iPad has the interface and battery life, the Pro the power and flexibility...

Good point

[gumblecosby]

If a computer is x86 and fairly modern it has a good chance of running OS X. This shouldn't be a surprise. Methods for running OS X have become simpler as time goes on. EFI emulation , DSDT's and decrypters such as fakesmc.kext make it less painful now compared to the Tiger days.

[Giuly]

Originally Posted by gumblecosby

If a computer is x86 and fairly modern it has a good chance of running OS X. This shouldn't be a surprise. Methods for running OS X have become simpler as time goes on. EFI emulation , DSDT's and decrypters such as fakesmc.kext make it less painful now compared to the Tiger days.

dd if=some.iso of=/dev/diskX and logging in as deadmoo was really a burden. You needed an empty hard drive, 20 minutes of time and a Linux CD.

Really complex, lots of ins and outs.

[gumblecosby]

Originally Posted by Giuly

dd if=some.iso of=/dev/diskX and logging in as deadmoo was really a burden. You needed an empty hard drive, 20 minutes of time and a Linux CD.

Really complex, lots of ins and outs.

..and a paper clip in your VGA port to get your internal display working whilst keeping your laptop portable. Very straightforward. Things are better now.

[Giuly]

Originally Posted by gumblecosby

..and a paper clip in your VGA port to get your internal display working whilst keeping your laptop portable. Very straightforward. Things are better now.

The real problem with the early images of Tiger was that they were so slow that you could calculate the pixels of the spinning beachball faster in your head than they were appearing on the screen.

[Nightarchaon]

I hope this is real, i can have the Hardware i want with the OS i want.

Apple, take a note, THIS is what the iPad Air could have been.

----------

Originally Posted by milo

Cool that someone pulled it off but I don't really see the practical appeal when you compare it with say a Macbook Air, in terms of price, battery life, etc.

If a macbook air had a touchscreen, and detachable keyboard/cover you'd be right.

[Nozuka]

Does OSX even support a touchscreen? How did he make that work?

[dukebound85]

Originally Posted by Nozuka

Does OSX even support a touchscreen? How did he make that work?

I don't think it depends on the os, but the hardware and resulting drivers.

Here's another take that has been around for a while
http://gizmodo.com/363137/axiotron-m...ook-done-right

[Nunyabinez]

As was mentioned before (though challenged with out actual refutation) the surface has a locked down firmware to prevent just such abominations.

"The Microsoft Surface is a fairly attractive bit of tablet hardware, and as a result people have shown interest in running Linux on it. The immediate problem is that (like many ARM devices) it has a locked-down firmware that will only run signed binaries - unlike many other ARM devices, this is implemented using an existing standard (UEFI Secure Boot). Microsoft provide a signing service for UEFI binaries, so it's tempting to think that getting around this restriction would be as simple as taking an existing Linux bootloader, signing it and then booting. Unfortunately Microsoft's signing service signs binaries using a different key (the "Microsoft Windows UEFI Driver Publisher" key) to the one used to sign Windows, and the Surface doesn't carry that key. Booting Linux on these devices would involve finding a flaw in the firmware and using that to run arbitrary code."

Hence I renew my cry of "BS".

source: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/21189.html

[Renzatic]

Originally Posted by Nunyabinez

Hence I renew my cry of "BS".

source: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/21189.html

The article's talking about the RT. The Pro doesn't have a locked bootloader.

So this means that, yes, it could be easily hackintoshed.

[hvfsl]

Originally Posted by Nunyabinez

As was mentioned before (though challenged with out actual refutation) the surface has a locked down firmware to prevent just such abominations.

"The Microsoft Surface is a fairly attractive bit of tablet hardware, and as a result people have shown interest in running Linux on it. The immediate problem is that (like many ARM devices) it has a locked-down firmware that will only run signed binaries - unlike many other ARM devices, this is implemented using an existing standard (UEFI Secure Boot). Microsoft provide a signing service for UEFI binaries, so it's tempting to think that getting around this restriction would be as simple as taking an existing Linux bootloader, signing it and then booting. Unfortunately Microsoft's signing service signs binaries using a different key (the "Microsoft Windows UEFI Driver Publisher" key) to the one used to sign Windows, and the Surface doesn't carry that key. Booting Linux on these devices would involve finding a flaw in the firmware and using that to run arbitrary code."

Hence I renew my cry of "BS".

source: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/21189.html

That quote is talking about the ARM based surface. We are talking about the intel based surface pro here, which isn't too different from a MacBook Air (CPU/chipset wise).

So this should all be possible and you can buy mac based tablets at the moment (look up modbook). But of course that doesn't mean this is real.

[pacalis]

MS Office on iPad is news. Not Apple guy bricks surface...

[aristotle]

Originally Posted by Nightarchaon

I hope this is real, i can have the Hardware i want with the OS i want.

Apple, take a note, THIS is what the iPad Air could have been.

----------



If a macbook air had a touchscreen, and detachable keyboard/cover you'd be right.

Are you out of your ever loving mind? That hardware has abysmal battery life and you cannot even use it with the keyboards in your "lap". It is a portable desktop as it requires a desktop in order to operate with a keyboard.

[notjustjay]

OS X is not a touch aware OS, no, but it is gesture aware, and if you look at features like Mission Control and Launchpad, you can't help but wonder if the next step will be to integrate touch.

I was really impressed with Surface when I had a look at it a while back. But, I think there are still issues. It is clearly not meant to be a touch-screen only interface; if you were to buy a Surface tablet without either the Touch Cover or the Type Cover, you're going to have a very hard time. To me, for regular apps, touching the screen can be a great, tactile, natural input method, but it must augment the keyboard/mouse/trackpad, not replace it. You're not going to get far using Photoshop or Excel using only the touch screen.

[Nightarchaon]

Originally Posted by aristotle

Are you out of your ever loving mind? That hardware has abysmal battery life and you cannot even use it with the keyboards in your "lap". It is a portable desktop as it requires a desktop in order to operate with a keyboard.

its exactly what i want, the battery life is on par with the Air, and i want to use it as a desktop with keyboard, when not at a desk, i want to use it as a tablet..

Perfect device for me, better than carrying two devices, i could use it in tablet mode on the train to read books, watch movies etc, then, drop on desk, plug in USB mouse, and its ready to go as my PC.

----------

Originally Posted by milo

If those were things that had actual benefit that outweighed the limitations of the device, you'd be right. And speaking of weight, once you add that keyboard/cover, it even weighs more than the Air.

but still less than carrying the larger screen Air and an iPad which is what i do at the moment.

----------

Originally Posted by Gemütlichkeit

Nightarchaon, take note. This tablet is a joke and the reviews are there to prove it.

hey, i also liked Betamax, Minidisc and HD-DvD

[JoEw]

Originally Posted by Nightarchaon

its exactly what i want, the battery life is on par with the Air, and i want to use it as a desktop with keyboard, when not at a desk, i want to use it as a tablet..

Perfect device for me, better than carrying two devices, i could use it in tablet mode on the train to read books, watch movies etc, then, drop on desk, plug in USB mouse, and its ready to go as my PC.

----------



but still less than carrying the larger screen Air and an iPad which is what i do at the moment.

----------



hey, i also liked Betamax, Minidisc and HD-DvD

Frankly the 2 experiences are 2 separate devices. Put them together you get well.. a Surface. It is half assed PC and half assed tablet experience in 1 device. According to reviews at least.