Apple Legal vs x86 Mac OS X

[MacRohde]

I did it

So I installed you-know-what on my P4-Northwood box. And let me tell you that although it's a very rudimentary experience because of no drivers etc., it's blazingly fast, extremely responsive, drop-dead gorgeus and just generally gives the impression of an OS that's miles ahead of XP. Seriously, the "only" thing it did for me is convincing me, without a doubt, that my next system is gonna be a true Mac system.

I'm very impressed. Very.

And no, this train can't be stopped. Apple must have been naive thinking they could contain it, if of course all this wasn't a part of their grand plan. Guess what's the #1 torrent download this week? No way Apple, you might have TPM etc., but this is the x86 borough, the home of hackers, crackers, and other bad boys. The future is now.

 

[SPUY767]

And this is without QE. Only a select people can enable QE, but even without it OS X still runs fast. Kinda like a G5, but at 1/4 of the price.

What Apple should really worry about is people installing OS X on centrino-based laptops. These would put to shame any current powerbook and its almost too tempting to pass up.

I can tell that you haven't actually installed OS X on a PC. I have, and it runs like a dog, and that's on a Prescott LGA 775 3.06 with a gig of DDR400. As fast as a G5. . . You're on heroin or something. You might get the UI to behave at a reasonably fast speed, maybe even a little faster b/c of a higher clock speed. But you start opening applications, then you'll see what the G5 is truly made of.

 

[MacRohde]

I can tell that you haven't actually installed OS X on a PC. I have, and it runs like a dog, and that's on a Prescott LGA 775 3.06 with a gig of DDR400. As fast as a G5. . . You're on heroin or something. You might get the UI to behave at a reasonably fast speed, maybe even a little faster b/c of a higher clock speed. But you start opening applications, then you'll see what the G5 is truly made of.

Nonsense. It runs blazingly fast on my P4 (read above). If it runs slow like hell on your machine it's probably because you didn't remove AppleTPMACPI.kext.

 

[SPUY767]

That's a negative pardner.

Yeap that's an Antec P180 case which yours truly owns and it kicks the G5 case in the b@lls.

I'm sorry, but anyone versed in industrial design wil tell you that the G5's case is absulutely flawless engineering. I'm not saying that cause I'm a fanboi as I'm sure I'll be called, I'm saying that because the damned thing is so beautiful. The Antec p180 case is plastic with a couple of thin sheets of brushed aluminum stuck to the side. The G5 case is 4 pieces of solid machined aluminum. I'd trust my case to stop a bullet. Would you?

 

[jocknerd]

Stop comparing now to the 90's.

You've forgotten that they tried that before in the 90's. There was almost no Apple left after that. They get it, trust me. And last time I checked, Apple was doing rather well as a company. 🙂 Remember, Apple's biggest profit is from their hardware, not OS X.

Big difference. Apple had nothing to replace the loss of hardware sales with. They could have sold their OS to the Intel world, but nobody would have bought it. Its a different story now. People want OS X.

And yes, Apple's biggest profit is from its hardware now, not OS X. Duh! But if they sell OS X to the masses, that could change very quickly. Apple sells only 5% of all new computers. What if OS X were installed on 1/4 of all the other 95% of computers sold. Thats a lot more money than what their hardware brings in. Apple makes about $400 on average for each computer they sell. But they would make about $75 on average for each copy of OS X they sell. They would only have to sell 5 copies of OS X to equal the earnings from each computer they sell. Doesn't seem too difficult.

 

[jocknerd]

You're the first to complain about it being slow.

I can tell that you haven't actually installed OS X on a PC. I have, and it runs like a dog, and that's on a Prescott LGA 775 3.06 with a gig of DDR400. As fast as a G5. . . You're on heroin or something. You might get the UI to behave at a reasonably fast speed, maybe even a little faster b/c of a higher clock speed. But you start opening applications, then you'll see what the G5 is truly made of.

Every other thing I've read about OS X on a P-4 says its incredibly fast.

 

[SPUY767]

What is teh 64 bit?

...running the 32bit intel code XTools produces. Hmmm.

64 bits describes little more than the ability to address more than 4096 mb of physical memory and handle Massive numbers without special manipulation. Mathitica runs on the G5 like a champ because the massive numbers that can be generated can be handled with ease. For instance, a G5 can natively handle numbers 4,294,967,296 times as large as the largest number that a P4 can handle natively. Pretty crazy stuff. But in every day computing, those extra 32 bits don't make that much of a difference. The only real reason to want 64 bit chips is because the architectures tend to be slightly more advanced. I may take heat for this, but clock speed aside, the netburst architecture that the P4 is based on pales in comparison to the architecture that the G5 is built on in every respect except one, clock speed. and when you start running anymore than a single application, a Dual G5 is going to outpace P4. You see, that's the problem with benchmarks, they don't do anything to judge real world performance. If you wanna see a G5 rape a P4 or AMD, let's encode an MPEG2 in the background AND run Doom 3 or some processor intensive application. Now that I'm wildly off base and not even sure where I started, I'll STHU. Oh yeah, 32 bit code will run well on a properly designed 64 bit chip like the G5, or any other that does not have to emulate 32bit processing.

 

[SPUY767]

Every other thing I've read about OS X on a P-4 says its incredibly fast.

I'm sure that it's fast on hte dev boxes, all I know is that is runs like total poo on my system. Just goes to show, every PC is different. Ona side note tho, I got the Mac drive to do something that no windows install will ever do, and that is boot up on two differnet machines with no reconfiguration, and these are vastly different machines. One was a Dell dimension, and one was my homebrew box.

 

[jocknerd]

You must have studied math with the RIAA

Imagine this: Apple starts selling OS X for PC. Some windows users are tempted, many more Mac users, afraid of dishing out $3,000 for a new G5 buy the newest 4GHz PC at $1,200 lets say. Apple just lost $3,000 while selling a $125 software!

Apple hasn't lost $3000, they've made $125. That person wouldn't have spent $3000 on an Apple computer. They would have spent $1200 on a Windows machine and then spent more money on software for Windows ensuring that they would probably never switch to Apple.

But if they have the ability to spend $125 to install OS X on their PC or better yet, spend $1200 to get OS X already installed on their PC, they'll probably buy more Apple software and maybe their next computer WILL be an Apple.


Your argument sounds just like the RIAA when they say they lose "millions" every year to illegal downloads. The fact is, they haven't lost anything. Those illegal downloads wouldn't have been bought anyway.

 

[jocknerd]

Thats not surprising about the bootup

I'm sure that it's fast on hte dev boxes, all I know is that is runs like total poo on my system. Just goes to show, every PC is different. Ona side note tho, I got the Mac drive to do something that no windows install will ever do, and that is boot up on two differnet machines with no reconfiguration, and these are vastly different machines. One was a Dell dimension, and one was my homebrew box.

OS X boots like Linux. It inspects the hardware when it boots and loads the necessary drivers. Windows on the other hand wants to store everything in the god awful registry. The best thing that could ever happen to Windows is to lose that piece of ***** registry.

 

[jocknerd]

I couldn't agree with you more

I'm sorry, but anyone versed in industrial design wil tell you that the G5's case is absulutely flawless engineering. I'm not saying that cause I'm a fanboi as I'm sure I'll be called, I'm saying that because the damned thing is so beautiful. The Antec p180 case is plastic with a couple of thin sheets of brushed aluminum stuck to the side. The G5 case is 4 pieces of solid machined aluminum. I'd trust my case to stop a bullet. Would you?

Apple's hardware is by the far, the best out there. Thats why I don't think they will lose hardware sales if they sell OS X to the masses. Lets face it, a lot of people only want the cheapest product they can get. They'll never buy Apple. But I just can't see Apple losing sales from their own hardware base. These Apples made now are much nicer than the Apple's made in the 90's. In fact, I think Apple's hardware sales will only increase in the long run if more people can be exposed to OS X.

 

[lopresmb]

somehow I don't think that releasing a standalone version of OSX for any PC is a good idea.

1)Apple would sell 1/5 of the computers that they now sell (sure most of the people here would buy apple machines - but PC switchers would stick with their $500 Dell box with x86OSX)

2)yes, there would be quite a bit of interest amongst PC users, but you are not going to get corporate america (windoze stronghold) to switch to OSX overnight, or because they are so used to mediocrity, not at all.

3)This would move Apple to completely abandon Hardware sales because unless they moved to the super - fast niche market (see Falcon - alienware), most people aren't going to buy really well designed machines for the current price points, espicially if they don't have any amazing "hardware specs"


--but not unlike the 90's if they sold x86OSX, Dell would snatch it up real quick and like powercomputing, offer a machine with better "specs" than a Mac (design be damned) and start underselling Apple in the wal-mart esque fashion

 

[duffman9000]

I can tell that you haven't actually installed OS X on a PC. I have, and it runs like a dog, and that's on a Prescott LGA 775 3.06 with a gig of DDR400. As fast as a G5. . . You're on heroin or something. You might get the UI to behave at a reasonably fast speed, maybe even a little faster b/c of a higher clock speed. But you start opening applications, then you'll see what the G5 is truly made of.

YOU haven't installed OS X on a pc correctly. There is no default install... yet. My Athlon will crap on your P4. Look at my specs. Even at stock settings it is already fast. Don't start with the G5 rules the world crap. If so then why is Apple SWITCHING?

Read a couple posts back. Real ATA driver support is still preliminary. When it does work there's a 10x hard disk speed increase. The UI is already acceptable even without QE. Obviously you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[duffman9000]

Nonsense. It runs blazingly fast on my P4 (read above). If it runs slow like hell on your machine it's probably because you didn't remove AppleTPMACPI.kext.

Exactly. There are other speed increases but that by far is the biggest. Running the latest patches is also a plus and if you're lucky enough to have working ata drivers then you're golden.
Which is why i'm buying a used thinkpad P-M today. I'm selling my pbg4 for almost the same price as this used T-40. No downside. It's 1.5GHz P-M will crush my old 500 MHz G4. Even with no QE, which my mac doesn't support, it will still fly due to the supported chipset.

 

[BenRoethig]

There are key differences between Windows and Mac OS X that prevent this kind of thing from happening. Take this example:
•A user running Windows XP goes to install the latest version of QuickTime on his computer. He downloads the installer and installs it. It never asks him for a password.
• A user running Mac OS X goes to install the latest verstion of QuickTime on his computer. He downloads it, mounts the disk image, and opens the package. It asks him for an administrator password. QuickTime then installs.

Unfortunately for Apple, Billy boy is lifting this feature for Windows Vista.

I'm going to stop right here because I'm laughing too hard.

Straw-man arguments are pointless enough, but to think even for a minute that Microsoft is capable of addressing any serious user concern is just hysterical.

Microsoft is a business. OSX on intel and the possibility of it running on other computers represents a threat to their bottom line. They will do what it takes to answer a potential threat to their bottom line. Discounting Microsoft and the "all the idiot PC users will eventually see the light" argument got Apple where its at.

 

[bankshot]

Microsoft is a business. OSX on intel and the possibility of it running on other computers represents a threat to their bottom line. They will do what it takes to answer a potential threat to their bottom line.

This is exactly the point that I think most people miss here. If Apple ditches their hardware business model and goes head-to-head against Microsoft in the x86 OS market, Microsoft will absolutely CRUSH them into oblivion. All other considerations aside, Apple would be complete fools to attempt this. They are a large, profitable company with lots of cash in the bank - why toss all of that away in a feeble attempt to topple the giant which is many times bigger? Not gonna happen!

So no, Apple did not plan this. They may have anticipated it as a necessary evil, but I guarantee they will not simply allow such rampant piracy (especially at this stage when only the dev boxes are out in the wild) and they will not sell OS X for generic x86 any time soon. Maybe if they got their market share up to 25% via legitimate Mac sales and spent years planning, maybe then they could make that leap. But it would still be a foolish and incredible risky leap. Why give up the good thing they have going now? Seriously, who cares about world domination as long as you can make a nice profit?

My only fear as a Mac user is that we're just seeing the beginning of extremely rampant piracy of OS X / x86. People are used to getting things for free on the internet, and if not free, then cheap. 99% of people will buy something that's half as good to save 10% off the price. And people are used to getting their OS for "free" (it just comes with the computer) and not paying the higher prices that Macs command. So what percentage of those who want OS X will pirate it? Buy a cheap PC and download OS X for free since it's too expensive to get a Mac. Will it be comparable to the percentage that pirates Windows (and therefore something Apple can live with) or will it be much higher due to the demand combined with prices that seem unreasonable to the average consumer? That's the big unknown in my opinion.

Interesting times, for sure.

 

[heisetax]

I'm surprised that they've had to take legal action this early... They've only released developer kits, and that was only 2 and a half months ago. People are really into hacking these days don't you think?

I can't believe it didn't take them longer to do this, and in turn it would take longer for Apple to respond. I thought there wouldn't be any legal pressure until the systems were released to the public.

Its a good thing that Apple is going after these people... the last thing we want is for OS X to be avaible on any PC......

Since Apple thinks of themselves as a hardware company they will have to make it very difficult to run the Intel version of OS X only only Apple-Intel machines & not just any Intel or maybe even AMD machines. Apple has long ago lost their chance of selling a general Intel/AMD based stand alone OS. I'm for being able to run OS X on any Intel or AMD processor computer. Apple has made their decision to have an Intel based OS, now they will have to live with it. The surprising part of all of this is that there was enough interest with the Intel user to bother with the Max OS. Will this mean that the Intel Mac wil generate as much interest with the virus writers? Apple wanted to be more main stream. I'm one that remembers when hackers were good people. To me some hackers are still good people. The original IBM PC Clones were made with a reverse engineered ROM which is the type of thing that a hacker would do. All that has to be done is to reverse engineer whatever Apple puts into their ROM & find something legal to take care of anything that Apple does in hardware & we will see the legal Clone market thanks to Steve Jobs. The question is whether there is enough interest in the Mac to make these Clones. The IBM PC was very popular so there was an economic pressure to make clones. Apple has kept their computers in the minority position of the market. Maybe we now know why. I would still like to see someone to make a legal Mac Clone. That can only happen if they have an unlimited amount of money to spend on legal fees to counter the sure Apple lawsuits. This will only leave us with Clones that may only partially work & probably only give Mac computers a poorer & poorer name.

Bill the Clone User TaxMan

 

[Ghibli]

So no, Apple did not plan this. They may have anticipated it as a necessary evil,

So they are just fools? If they wanted to keep it secure they would have:

1) Take a better copy-protection approach
2) Watermark the developer DVD
3) Start sueing ALL the "hacker" sites the very SAME DAY that this went into the wild (about 20 days ago) .

What have they done until now? They have just taken out TWO torrent links fron JUST ONE SITE (I recall at least other 3 o 4 sites with videos) and they didn't nothing for removing the quick start guide that is present on the very same page!

See

http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2005-08-10#4352

for reference.

C'mon! Let's try to be serious.

 

[~Shard~]

So they are just fools? If they wanted to keep it secure they would have:

1) Take a better copy-protection approach
2) Watermark the developer DVD
3) Start sueing ALL the "hacker" sites the very SAME DAY that this went into the wild (about 20 days ago) .

What have they done until now? They have just taken out TWO torrent links fron JUST ONE SITE (I recall at least other 3 o 4 sites with videos) and they didn't nothing for removing the quick start guide that is present on the very same page!

See

http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2005-08-10#4352

for reference.

C'mon! Let's try to be serious.

Further to this, and in general, I think people are not giving Apple enough credit. They're not dummies. 😎

 

[BenRoethig]

This is exactly the point that I think most people miss here. If Apple ditches their hardware business model and goes head-to-head against Microsoft in the x86 OS market, Microsoft will absolutely CRUSH them into oblivion. All other considerations aside, Apple would be complete fools to attempt this. They are a large, profitable company with lots of cash in the bank - why toss all of that away in a feeble attempt to topple the giant which is many times bigger? Not gonna happen!

So no, Apple did not plan this. They may have anticipated it as a necessary evil, but I guarantee they will not simply allow such rampant piracy (especially at this stage when only the dev boxes are out in the wild) and they will not sell OS X for generic x86 any time soon. Maybe if they got their market share up to 25% via legitimate Mac sales and spent years planning, maybe then they could make that leap. But it would still be a foolish and incredible risky leap. Why give up the good thing they have going now? Seriously, who cares about world domination as long as you can make a nice profit?

My only fear as a Mac user is that we're just seeing the beginning of extremely rampant piracy of OS X / x86. People are used to getting things for free on the internet, and if not free, then cheap. 99% of people will buy something that's half as good to save 10% off the price. And people are used to getting their OS for "free" (it just comes with the computer) and not paying the higher prices that Macs command. So what percentage of those who want OS X will pirate it? Buy a cheap PC and download OS X for free since it's too expensive to get a Mac. Will it be comparable to the percentage that pirates Windows (and therefore something Apple can live with) or will it be much higher due to the demand combined with prices that seem unreasonable to the average consumer? That's the big unknown in my opinion.

Interesting times, for sure.

Apple doesn't have much of a choice anymore. They've made their bed with intel and now they have to sleep in it. People are going to pirate it whatever measures Apple takes. They can make an attempt to wrestle users away from Microsoft by doing licensing deals and using their current popularity or they can fall back into obscurity and let Microsoft once again reap the rewards of their innovations. Apple should have stayed with IBM and the PowerPC with they wanted a closed architecture.

 

[BenRoethig]

Further to this, and in general, I think people are not giving Apple enough credit. They're not dummies. 😎

No, but they live under Steve's reality distortion field. A lot of what Apple has done no business in their right mind would even attempt. A lot of Steve's ideas have been successes, but there have also been some real bombs (like the cube).

 

[~Shard~]

No, but they live under Steve's reality distortion field. Have of what Apple has attempted any business in their right minds. A lot of Steve's ideas have been successes, but their have also been some real bombs.

Fair enough (although I don't understand your second sentence 😱) but for a large shift like PPC->Intel, I would think Apple thought things through carefully and didn't just do this on a whim, not thinking about the possible ramifications.

I guess time will tell... 😎

 

[Ghibli]

Further to this, and in general, I think people are not giving Apple enough credit. They're not dummies. 😎

I remember many people saying the iPod was a quick-burn one.

They said that no one would make money on a MP3 player, that the market was already full and that Apple was going to lose a lot of money.

If this is the way that Jobs reality distorsion field works... well I think I should get one for myself 😎

I for sure do not know what Apple has up the sleeve, but I'm sure that it will be something great! (And planned... just remember that is 5 years that they are ready for this...)

 

[Sun Baked]

Fair enough (although I don't understand your second sentence 😱) but for a large shift like PPC->Intel, I would think Apple thought things through carefully and didn't just do this on a whim, not thinking about the possible ramifications.

I guess time will tell... 😎

I doubt Apple will worry too much about Tiger ... it'll become the Mac OS X vers. 10.0.0 of the x86 machines world -- with quite a few of the current G4/G5 features being reactiviated in the next OS.

And we all know those machines won't resemble the developer box, and it's quite possible Apple will lock down the OS in Leopard.

Tiger will be extremely pirated, getting people interested in the new Macs and entice people to buying Leopard.

 

[~Shard~]

And we all know those machines won't resemble the developer box, and it's quite possible Apple will lock down the OS quite in Leopard.

Tiger will be extremely pirated, getting people interested in the new Macs and entire people to buying Leopard.

Very good point. I always wondered why Jobs chose to mention Leopard at WWDC with such little detail - it just didn't seem to fit with the rest of his announcments. However, perhaps this was part of it - perhaps Leopard is being designed right now with a lot of these piracy issues, etc. in mind, and will be more than "just another OS X upgrade". Sure, any form of security, anti-piracy mechanism can undoubtedly be cracked, but who knows what Apple's plans and strategies are wrt to Leopard. As you say, Let Tiger be pirated beyond recognition, get people hooked, and entice people to buy Leopard in the future. 😎