OS X works just fine on AMD

[Mord]

I just "upgraded" to an AMD Athlon X2 from a Pentium 4 and while i agree that the processor is magnificant and fast and power and whips the P4 around the place, the chipset it runs on is a POS. The nForce 4 still has problems that plagued the nForce1 and has lots of compatibility problems. The intel motherboard just worked, no problems and now worries.

Intel at the moment don't have the most powerful processors but they have the best motherboard chipsets.

AMD at the moment have the best and most powerful processors but they have ATTROCIOUS motherboard chipsets.

Apple users don't use apple because it's the fastest (lets face it it's not), they use it because it is only slightly slower but runs a lot nicer and has less problems. Thats why Apple went Intel, less problems even though they are less powerful. Although when the new PentiumM's come out AMD will be shaking in their boots.

I'm all for the underdogs and i'd love if apple went AMD but only if someone brought out a decent motherboard chipset to go with it.

that entirely to do with driver support in windows xp, microsoft has ties with intel and will support all their chipsets, neforce boards need a few drivers and personally i'd rather have all the great features on my neforce 3 board like firewire 800 4x sata hardware RAID, 7.1 sound ect, apple chose intel because they will have the best cpu's in 2006/7.

 

[TBi]

that entirely to do with driver support in windows xp, microsoft has ties with intel and will support all their chipsets, neforce boards need a few drivers and personally i'd rather have all the great features on my neforce 3 board like firewire 800 4x sata hardware RAID, 7.1 sound ect, apple chose intel because they will have the best cpu's in 2006/7.

With a built in hardware firewall that corrupts downloads and IDE problems WITH the downloaded drivers? I don't mind having to install the drivers themselves (you still have to with newer Intel boards) but i'd like if the hardware actually worked properly. Not counting the drivers themselves i've had way more problems with AMD chipsets over the years than Intel ones. If the pentium 4's weren't so power hungry i'd still have one (well i still do but as a server).

 

[Josh]

And from the looks of it, you are definitely not that.

Well, I'm also not in the crowd saying a business is more likely to cater to 2% of the market, rather than the remaining 98%..so apparently, I'm not the one farthest from it

Apple exists to make money - plain and simple. Apple does not exist to create some cult of elitist zealots and do whatever those zealots think would be a 'cool experience'. If Apple is faced with 2 choices, choice A leads no where, and choice B makes them a TON of money - they're going with choice B.

OS X is, by nature, more secure than Windows. It has nothing to do with the market share. There ARE people who would like to write a virus for Macs, I mean just imagine the publicity it would get. But have you gotten one yet? I haven't. It's not that no one is trying, it's that OS X is really secure. So the fear of virus/spyware is not something Apple has.

Apple, as any other business, has 2 goals: Make money and please stockholders.

Catering to a tiny group of zealots does neither. They want to make money, and selling to the largest group possible is the only way to do that.

I'm sorry if being the only 1 out of 22 people to own a Mac makes people feel 'special', 'unique', or better than anyone else, but things are going to change, it's just a fact.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

are you kidding? OSX can not compete with windows on a business level. OSX lacks serious business advantages. dont get me wrong i love apple and use it exclusively but i know better. windows is for business. apple is for the home user and creative studios (to simplify it). apple seriously lacks business solutions. i cant even run my small business the way i could with windows because i chose apple.

so dont think apple will now dominate the world. they have a long way to go to overshadow microsoft when it comes to business.

But let's face it: Apple is nowhere at the home level either. But the point is, if there IS more and more support for Apple computers at home (as we are slowly starting to see), then at some point someone will start wondering why they can't play with Macs at work too, and then the business software will start rolling out.

On another level though, many businesses only need email, Word and Excel - all of which are perfectly good on the Mac, at least for the majority of their employees.

 

[mkaake]

Let me see if I can say what I want to say w/o getting hit with the massive amounts of crap flying around here...

Apple is very healthy as a company where they sit right now. Profit comes from hardware sales, and software makes a nice little compliement.

Changing the business model to selling a generic version of X for pc's would mean moving from a hardware sale model to a software sale model... and no-one (seriously, none of us) can accuratly predict what that would do.

Who knows - the volume might make it work out great. Or it might kill them. We don't know - and we can't know, and all of the 'facts' about what would happen to apple in that sort of a situation are nothing more than opinions based on techie wet dreams of what we want apple to be.

In any event, I do remember back when I took marketing, a nice little section talking about competition... we talked about how a company could pursue the mass market, where they're looking at very strong compeititors, or taking thier business to a much smaller market, where they're not just a commodity... and sometimes it made more sense to go after the larger market (though it's a quick way to put a business out of comission), but more often, it made sense to go after the smaller, niche type market.

So yeah - I personally think apple would be shooting themselves in the foot if they tried to change their entire business model to one that makes money off of software. But it's nothing more than speculation...

And the folks at apple have been thinking about this for a *lot* longer than we have, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see what sort of decision they've made. They're usually pretty good (though not always) about keeping Apple from shutting down...

 

[sushi]

The day of proprietary hardware is over. Talk about the "Apple Experience" and other myths the zealots like to spread all you wish - but OS X will be made legally available by Apple to anyone. It WILL be made to run on any machine. Just wait and see.

Unfortunately, you do not make a timeframe for your prediction.

Hell may freeze over someday too. But when?

One thing is for sure, if Apple decides to release Mac OS X for the Wintel platform, it will be thoroughly tested before that event occurs. It will need to be rock solid on everything that is out there. Otherwise it would be a huge failure on their part.

So initially, Apple will restrict the release to a limited platform base, ie. the Mactel if you will. Only after it has been deployed successfully on the limited Mactel offerings, will Apple consider the rest of the market.

So sure you can say what you did. But the key is, when?

I could say that the world will end someday. In all probability that will be true. The 64 dollar question is when? Tomorrow or 3 billion years from now?

So let us know your real prediction and tell us when OS X will be set free!

Sushi

 

[Josh]

^^

I don't think anyone can accurately guess when, but my best guess would be within the next 3-5 years.

I don't think Apple will create an OS X that supports everything, rather, I think they will release OS X, and have more than usual specific system requirements.

Either way, I don't think it's *that* far away.

 

[sushi]

^^

I don't think anyone can accurately guess when, but my best guess would be within the next 3-5 years.

I don't think Apple will create an OS X that supports everything, rather, I think they will release OS X, and have more than usual specific system requirements.

Either way, I don't think it's *that* far away.

Some comments:

- Apple's hardware is well tested and thoroughly checked. Reliable is a word that comes to mind.

- Apple makes their OS and Apps to sell the hardware. They are currently a hardware company and not a software company. Even the iPod and iTMS follows this model. It will be hard for them to change.

- Mac OS X is very good and getting better with each iteration.

- The Wintel platform has many variables. In reality, it is surprising how well XP really works.

- All we know today is that the developers are using Wintel machines. What we don't know is the minimum requirements for Mac OS X to operate. What will be the minimum requirements on the final version?

- Not everyone is going to want use Mac OS X. Businesses will not change overnight. Back Office and other apps will preclude this.

- I would estimate that many if not a majority of Wintel platforms would not have the specs required to run Mac OS X.

Sushi

 

[Fukui]

why is this the best thing to happen to apple? losing control of how your OS is distributed is positive? i think its unsetteling at best.

Thats what it looks like, but I can gurantee you people at apple KNOW this was going to happen... you are quite probably watching the most sly advertising campaign in recent history of business!!