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Former Sony President Recounts Steve Jobs' Desire to Launch an OS X-Compatible VAIO
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Apple has always been run by perfectionists, and if they had wanted to make an exception in licensing their OS, Sony would have been a logical choice. Even while we don't have Blu-ray on Macs, when the Blu-ray vs HD DVD war was raging, SJ was an early backer of Sony's Blu-ray.
Somehow I can't imagine that, considering the huge philosophical difference in outlook between Sony and Samsung.
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This is a pretty good analogy, I'd say. Sony, at one point, was a company that made high-end but not exclusionary, beautifully designed, easy-to-use, category-defining products that a lot of people bought and loved. They seemed to really care about what they were building and how it worked.
Then at some point--due to a combination of getting fat and lazy, mismanagement, and letting the media guys dictate how the hardware should work--the company turned into a parody of its former self, and has become one of the most hostile to its own customers I can think of.
It's kind of like Apple, if Apple had reached the Sculley/Amelio stage in the post-iPod era.
Random / related memory:
When the PowerBook 100 came out, there was an article, describing how apple was displeased with the Apple Portable and essentially hired Sony to take the AP and turn it into the PB 100.
This was some years before the first VAIO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_100
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaio
When the PowerBook 100 came out, there was an article, describing how apple was displeased with the Apple Portable and essentially hired Sony to take the AP and turn it into the PB 100.
This was some years before the first VAIO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_100
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaio
They're pretty sleek and have high-end hardware, but they're really expensive, sometimes more expensive than comparable Macs. Sony is in the unfortunate position of being kinda special like Apple but still having to conform to Microsoft standards, so they end up making stuff that isn't really compatible with anything.
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I think of Sony as the Apple of the 90s. Even Nintendo seems somewhat Apple-like. And Apple could easily cease to be a leader in a few years. Without Jobs, it's looking likely
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Meh, I'd take something else over a VAIO laptop. VAIOs are too pricey for what they do other than looking great. And I'd never, ever buy a VAIO desktop.
Vaio has Blu-Ray
I considered a Vaio for the Blu-Ray drive as I liked to travel with a laptop and movie media. Had it not been for my disdain of Wimdows I may have purchased a Vaio with OS X. Having an external LaCie Blu-Ray drive and the convoluted ripping process of Blu-Ray Disks is annoying on my MacBook Pro. Not to mention the money I wasted on buying MacGo Blu-Ray player App.
I considered a Vaio for the Blu-Ray drive as I liked to travel with a laptop and movie media. Had it not been for my disdain of Wimdows I may have purchased a Vaio with OS X. Having an external LaCie Blu-Ray drive and the convoluted ripping process of Blu-Ray Disks is annoying on my MacBook Pro. Not to mention the money I wasted on buying MacGo Blu-Ray player App.
Well then you dont know ****.
Steve has always liked Sonys design language. He also used a Vaio Laptop when he came back to Apple because he thought Apples products were inferior then.
Also look at the macbook air introduction. He compared it to a Sony Vaio Laptop calling it the best and thinnest in the pc (Windows) market.
Back then the mainstream OS X was still running on PPC. I remember there were lots of posts from folks here giving all kinds of technical reasons why OS X could never physically run on x86 PCs.
Then came speculation that OS X could maybe run on an x86, in theory, but Apple would never let that happen because it was a huge step backwards, how superior the G5 chip was, and boy, once that PowerBook G5 came out (yeah, I went there
Then came the rumors that, indeed, not only was OS X on intel possible, but it was already working and a full on switch was going to happen. And again, lots of naysayers.
Yet here we are...
So I've learned to never say never.
What are your thoughts on OS X on ARM?
... and, aside from Jobs' enthusiasm for Sony, Apple had already worked with Sony on the design of the Powerbook 100. Considering that the powerbook range probably kept Apple afloat through the 90s, and that subsequently pretty much every other laptop adopted the Powerbook design (set-back keyboard, pointing device in the middle of a broad wrist-rest), that turned out pretty well.
So if Apple were thinking of making an Intel laptop then its really not so weird that they'd at least think of working with Sony - and this was all pre-iPod, so Apple and Sony weren't arch-rivals in the music biz at that stage.
Perhaps Jobs, in his usual shy, modest and unambitious way, was thinking that Sony might "acquire" Apple (in the same way that Apple "acquired" NeXT and Disney "acquired" Pixar)?
Guess who built the Powerbook 100 computer.
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Their best device _ever_ (not a product) was the world's smallest record player. They took a toy model of a Volkswagen bus, installed the pickup needle at the bottom, made a speaker that looked like a satellite dish on the roof, added a motor to actually drive it and some electronics. You put an LP on the table, set the toy on it, and off it went, playing the music.
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About that time they just received a $100 million loan from Apple, for developing LCD screens.
It's certainly technically possible. ARM chips are getting more and more powerful now -- the Geekbench scores from the latest iPad and iPhone are comparable to a MacBook Pro from a few years ago. That's surely oversimplifying things, but they are getting pretty capable.
Windows RT is an interesting example. From my understanding this is basically just regular Windows 8 but recompiled for ARM. Windows RT ships with a default (and non-changeable) setting to only allow Microsoft-signed code (e.g. from their App Store), but there is a jailbreak which allows you to change that setting to allow you to run any code. Then, apparently all it takes for anyone to get any Windows software running on a Windows RT machine is a recompile. There is a growing library of software for the Windows RT jailbreak community. Apparently Office for RT is also basically a recompiled version of regular Office.
I would imagine that it would be similarly easy for Apple to build full desktop OS X and desktop apps that could run on ARM devices. I expect there would be usability, performance, or other user-friendliness issues to solve (any kind of ARM based OS X machine would feel slower than a regular Mac, and that might be perceived poorly -- not to mention needing two versions of apps, or the return of universal binaries).
On the other hand, intel is getting more and more mobile-friendly, so maybe this is all moot.
Aaaaand Sony just sold off its Vaio division... Oops.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/06/sony-sells-vaio/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/06/sony-sells-vaio/
Maybe this is true, but do you have a source?
I heard he used a Toshiba Tecra.
"He was in the corner, typing on his Next computer. Steve relied on three computers, and none of them was a Macintosh. He had black Next machines at his home and office and a Toshiba Tecra as his notebook."
http://www.salon.com/2000/10/11/jobs_excerpt/
Agreed. Never had an issue with Sony VAIOs. HPs and Dells...well, thats a different story. POS to put it bluntly.
I remember using an earlier Japan market Vaio long before they became mainstream elsewhere. They were a classy laptop.
Then I got my own one in 2006. The thing still runs well and looks a treat.
