True. I got swept up in that. Don't want to have to buy a whole new logic board and processor now.
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Lack of 'Mac' Branding Raises Questions
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True. I got swept up in that. Don't want to have to buy a whole new logic board and processor now.
There is one way I actually see this idea coming to fruition:
Apple has never enjoyed competing in the low-end market. The Mac Mini has been rumored to be on the axing block but has limped on but with infrequent updates. This is because of the extremely low profit margin that Apple gets from these units. But the market is important to grab, and one that Apple has seen the least growth in as far as marketshare.
If Apple were to license OSX out to PC manufacturers but say they have to approve of the hardware specs, they could essentially limit "clones" to the low-end PC market. Let the likes of Dell make their insanely cheap computers and Apple will supply the OS, but don't let Dell compete with Apple on the tier of MacBooks and iMacs and upwards... that's Apple's territory.
In that such scenario, I could see it as a win-win. Apple's bottom line goes up for more OS sales, but little to no cannibalization because its a different market segment.
Apple has never enjoyed competing in the low-end market. The Mac Mini has been rumored to be on the axing block but has limped on but with infrequent updates. This is because of the extremely low profit margin that Apple gets from these units. But the market is important to grab, and one that Apple has seen the least growth in as far as marketshare.
If Apple were to license OSX out to PC manufacturers but say they have to approve of the hardware specs, they could essentially limit "clones" to the low-end PC market. Let the likes of Dell make their insanely cheap computers and Apple will supply the OS, but don't let Dell compete with Apple on the tier of MacBooks and iMacs and upwards... that's Apple's territory.
In that such scenario, I could see it as a win-win. Apple's bottom line goes up for more OS sales, but little to no cannibalization because its a different market segment.
OS X is now on 4 platforms -- is this related to PA Semi?
OS X is now on 4 platforms. That is why they dropped the "Mac" prefix. iPod, iPhone, and now Apple TV enjoy OS X.
I'll give OS X a 10% chance of making it onto other vendors' hardware, but only under the following conditions:
1. The other vendors only offer it pre-bundled on their highest-grade kits.
2. Apple has completed their secret project to lift Macs into a higher category than plain vanilla Intel-based machines through their acquisition of PA Semi.
There's no way Apple would ever taint the reputation of OS X by allowing it to run on cheapo machines. And they would never risk losing sales on their high-margin hardware -- unless, of course, there was no risk because no other vendors' high-end machines could compete with Macs.
OS X is now on 4 platforms. That is why they dropped the "Mac" prefix. iPod, iPhone, and now Apple TV enjoy OS X.
I'll give OS X a 10% chance of making it onto other vendors' hardware, but only under the following conditions:
1. The other vendors only offer it pre-bundled on their highest-grade kits.
2. Apple has completed their secret project to lift Macs into a higher category than plain vanilla Intel-based machines through their acquisition of PA Semi.
There's no way Apple would ever taint the reputation of OS X by allowing it to run on cheapo machines. And they would never risk losing sales on their high-margin hardware -- unless, of course, there was no risk because no other vendors' high-end machines could compete with Macs.
This is a developer conference. For developers new Mac hardware is rather irrelevant; they care about new software and APIs. That's probably why there's little news on that front. Makes more sense than "OMG OS X FOR PCS!"
No doubt they would.
They would re-brand all of their boxes as GENUINE Mac OS X.
GENUINE Mac OS X 10.7 would be codenamed "Tiger Shark" and dedicated to such things as Protected Media Path, and GENUINE Mac OS X validation that would call home to the servers with your social security number and all your credit card records to make sure that you actually did pay for it, say... maybe every couple of weeks. iTunes 8 will also re-protect all of your music for free, and stop you from ripping CDs because "anyone who hasn't ripped their CDs yet isn't going to so there's no point in maintaining that legacy code".
However, in a twist of fate, Apple will not release ANY other improvements, and will in fact begin removing features and reimplementing the System 7 kernel to replace the XNU and make Mac OS X a truly "modern" operating system.
Sebastian
I'm going to have to call BS on this one. Jobs killed the idea of clones a long while back and I doubt that he has suddenly changed his mind. The fact is, Apple is not going to open the Pandora's box of generic x86 platform support. Having to support all of the billions of possible PC hardware configurations would be a tech support nightmare.
Man, the wild speculation is really flying for this WWDC. Some of these rumours are worthy of Weekly World News, right along side batboy, bigfoot and alien anal-probing rayguns [cue creepy X-files music]. Mulder and Scully would be proud.
Man, the wild speculation is really flying for this WWDC. Some of these rumours are worthy of Weekly World News, right along side batboy, bigfoot and alien anal-probing rayguns [cue creepy X-files music]. Mulder and Scully would be proud.
They Prolly Won't But they Should
You Apple disciples are blind to the cold hard business facts.
No matter how much money Apple, Inc. is making lately, it still is missing 80 percent of the PC market.
There is little doubt that OSX is a superior OS for most people.
If Apple, Inc. were to make it available to run on all (or most) PCs, they would sell tens of millions of copies in just a couple of years.
I believe they could have 50% of the PC market in two years if they were to release OSX to run on PCs.
Apple may make most of its money selling "high margin" hardware.
Yes, the hardware is high margin, but the margins are even greater on software.
The R&D for the OS and applications is an ongoing budget expense, once a release is "frozen" and released, it costs PENNIES to stamp out copies of them.
In the $90.00 cost of a copy of OSX, prolly $2.00 is material cost (disks, boxes, books, etc.), about $40.00 goes to the reseller, and the remaining $48.00 is pure candy for Apple, Inc.
Not so with hardware.
There are testing and development costs, raw material costs, manufacturing costs, subcontractor costs, and distribution costs.
They are charging what the market will bear for their computers.
They could sell millions more units if they dropped their prices 25 - 30 percent.
The only reason Apple, Inc. has not released its OS to run on PCs is because Steve Jobs is a megalomaniac with an ego the size of a Hummer.
He likes to sell boxes with his Apple logo on them.
He could make billions more if he released is OS to run on PCs.
A better business model would be to release the OS for general distribution to run on "any" PC (read: most - those with compatible hardware) and sell less Apple branded hardware.
Which brings the bigger profit - selling 2 million units with $500 profit on each, or selling 50 million units with $45.00 profit on each?
Do the math.
You Apple disciples are blind to the cold hard business facts.
No matter how much money Apple, Inc. is making lately, it still is missing 80 percent of the PC market.
There is little doubt that OSX is a superior OS for most people.
If Apple, Inc. were to make it available to run on all (or most) PCs, they would sell tens of millions of copies in just a couple of years.
I believe they could have 50% of the PC market in two years if they were to release OSX to run on PCs.
Apple may make most of its money selling "high margin" hardware.
Yes, the hardware is high margin, but the margins are even greater on software.
The R&D for the OS and applications is an ongoing budget expense, once a release is "frozen" and released, it costs PENNIES to stamp out copies of them.
In the $90.00 cost of a copy of OSX, prolly $2.00 is material cost (disks, boxes, books, etc.), about $40.00 goes to the reseller, and the remaining $48.00 is pure candy for Apple, Inc.
Not so with hardware.
There are testing and development costs, raw material costs, manufacturing costs, subcontractor costs, and distribution costs.
They are charging what the market will bear for their computers.
They could sell millions more units if they dropped their prices 25 - 30 percent.
The only reason Apple, Inc. has not released its OS to run on PCs is because Steve Jobs is a megalomaniac with an ego the size of a Hummer.
He likes to sell boxes with his Apple logo on them.
He could make billions more if he released is OS to run on PCs.
A better business model would be to release the OS for general distribution to run on "any" PC (read: most - those with compatible hardware) and sell less Apple branded hardware.
Which brings the bigger profit - selling 2 million units with $500 profit on each, or selling 50 million units with $45.00 profit on each?
Do the math.
Apple is a hardware company. They write nice software in order to sell hardware. They write some PC software (iTunes & Safari) to motivate people to switch...to their HARDWARE.
Apple has very little incentive to make OSX available to generic PCs.
Apple has very little incentive to make OSX available to generic PCs.
No testing, huh? No development, huh? You're looking at the two biggest costs with software and you completely left it out of your formula above. Certainly you can amortize the cost after you reach some minimum number of copies sold, but Apple's aggressive "new OS release every 12-18 months" schedule is guaranteed to keep software R&D costs at a decent rate. Not to mention that your support costs are going to raise at a rate higher than your market penetration (partially because that's the way it works and partially because they'll get more and more complex support calls). Microsoft does incredibly well with software sales because they have a significantly longer software life cycle (~36-48 months) so the r&d costs have already been sunk. If Apple wishes to continue to focus on a positive user experience, they won't have that luxury.
Times are different..
Back then Jobs wasn't around, the developer community had jumped to Windows because MS made things easier for them.
I wouldn't be surprised if the
TV becomes a causal gaming console.
Times are totally different. Game distribution has changed (no longer reliant on physical media), Apple developer community growing, Jobs is back. Remember he said that Apple would never create software for PC but now we have iTunes and Safari on Windows.
Don't count it out that easily. Apple is hedging it bets which they should. In previous versions of iTunes there were text strings stating "This game isn't compatible with Apple TV." They are laying the groundwork to jump in when the time is right.
They already tried the game console thing, didn't pan out too well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin
Back then Jobs wasn't around, the developer community had jumped to Windows because MS made things easier for them.
I wouldn't be surprised if the
TV becomes a causal gaming console. Times are totally different. Game distribution has changed (no longer reliant on physical media), Apple developer community growing, Jobs is back. Remember he said that Apple would never create software for PC but now we have iTunes and Safari on Windows.
Don't count it out that easily. Apple is hedging it bets which they should. In previous versions of iTunes there were text strings stating "This game isn't compatible with Apple TV." They are laying the groundwork to jump in when the time is right.
Sorry if this has been noted before, I can't read every post here...
But the WWDC invitation clearly states "Everything Mac. Everything iPhone." So I seriously doubt Steve is going to announce OS X for PC. I'm sure the deletion of the "mac" moniker was to streamline the name "Mac OS X Leopard" is a mouthfull, and everyone calls it "OS X Leopard," "Leopard," or "10.5" anyway. Everyone knows it's for the Mac. Duh.
Changing .Mac to .Me or something is nothing more than an obvious rebranding now that you'll be able to use the service with your iPhone as well as your Mac. (and probably PC to some extent), hence .Mac doesn't clearly define what the service is about anymore.
As said, Apple is a HARDWARE company. They make s/w, sell songs, videos, audio book, etc to SELL MORE HARDWARE. Stop over reading the tea leaves. It'll only bum you out when your wild fantasies don't come true.
But the WWDC invitation clearly states "Everything Mac. Everything iPhone." So I seriously doubt Steve is going to announce OS X for PC. I'm sure the deletion of the "mac" moniker was to streamline the name "Mac OS X Leopard" is a mouthfull, and everyone calls it "OS X Leopard," "Leopard," or "10.5" anyway. Everyone knows it's for the Mac. Duh.
Changing .Mac to .Me or something is nothing more than an obvious rebranding now that you'll be able to use the service with your iPhone as well as your Mac. (and probably PC to some extent), hence .Mac doesn't clearly define what the service is about anymore.
As said, Apple is a HARDWARE company. They make s/w, sell songs, videos, audio book, etc to SELL MORE HARDWARE. Stop over reading the tea leaves. It'll only bum you out when your wild fantasies don't come true.
I think if ever there was a time to release Mac OS X for standard x86 hardware then now is that time:
Should Apple be willing to take the risk I think this would be a good thing for the computer industry as a whole. It could also seriously damage Microsoft.
- Vista has more or less flopped
- Mac OS X is now fairly mature and lacks most of the severe problems of the earlier releases
- Steve Jobs has done this before: He moved NeXTSTEP from 68K to i386 and multiple other architectures while abandoning NeXT hardware.
- It may be the only chance for long term survival of the Mac OS
- Major PC manufactures have expressed interest in bundling OS X with their systems
- Apple has revenue from the iPhone and iPods to keep them safe financially through the initial drop in hardware sales
- Apple cannot compete at the ultra-lowend with the likes of the Asus EeePC. I wish Apple would release a Mac mini at that price point!
- Apple could maintain their high priced hardware business. People would still buy Macs because of their style and perceived superior quality.
Should Apple be willing to take the risk I think this would be a good thing for the computer industry as a whole. It could also seriously damage Microsoft.
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Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that most hardware and peripherals work with the Mac. Almost everything except the no-name garbage. The cheap-o stuff is what really ruins the PC environment. So Apple wouldn't have to support all vendors, just the reliable ones. (enen MS tries to do this)
I've added quite a few 3rd party pieces parts to my G5 with no loss in user experience quality.
Also, even if OS X went mainstream, I would still buy a Mac. They're just nicer, more thoroughly thought out macine designs.
I think this is plausible. The future is in software and services, not hardware.
Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that most hardware and peripherals work with the Mac. Almost everything except the no-name garbage. The cheap-o stuff is what really ruins the PC environment. So Apple wouldn't have to support all vendors, just the reliable ones. (enen MS tries to do this)
I've added quite a few 3rd party pieces parts to my G5 with no loss in user experience quality.
Also, even if OS X went mainstream, I would still buy a Mac. They're just nicer, more thoroughly thought out macine designs.
I think this is plausible. The future is in software and services, not hardware.
Another thing that could contribute to this speculation is the fact that 10.6 is suppsedly called "Snow Leopard." Obviously, this isn't a big change in naming, so it could be a revision for PCs.
I would say three: Ipod Touch / Iphone are essentially the same. The other ipods are flash.
If apple does introduce OS X for PC's than I hope they make an extra version that is Apple Hardware only. I don't want to have an OS X on my MBP with tons of PC drivers and problems.
If that happens we can let go of "it just works"...
I didn't switch for cosmetic reasons.
If that happens we can let go of "it just works"...
I didn't switch for cosmetic reasons.
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Actually, Apple is a SOFTWARE company. This has been stated repeatedly by Jobs. Hence "those who are are passionate about software make their own hardware," and not "those who are passionate about hardware make their own software."
Chupa Chupa said:
Actually, Apple is a SOFTWARE company. This has been stated repeatedly by Jobs. Hence "those who are are passionate about software make their own hardware," and not "those who are passionate about hardware make their own software."
I agree with everything you've said here, I don't want to see more ugly PCs, but strategically it's a hell of a move. And I have to say the right one for Apple if they are confident enough in pulling it off. It would change everything, and I mean EVERYTHING!
If OS X platform can be leveraged into the OS of the 21st Century, they have to do it. This would make software their main earner, meaning that hardware prices can fall because they don't need to make such high profits from them, resulting in much higher sales, and so that war will be run on looks alone: Ugly PC at $pic your price, or gorgeous Apple for the same money!
To do this just when MS is distracted toying with coffee tables and massive surface tablets - as ideas for their next OS - because the current one is *****, would hit MS hard, very very hard indeed.
And to get it right, with the entire PC using world still repeating the same old lame excuses about Windows issues being related to its needing to be compatible with so many different machines, would destroy MS's credibility.
There won't be a spare hanging branch on any tree in the valley! Redmond PD will be on suicide watch 24/7. Anyone want to take a bet on who'll jump first? I'm torn between Gates and Ballmer. No, Ballmer will probably just explode!
Oh, the next few days are going to be interesting.
What? You didn't look at it like that? Come on guys, skate to where the puck is going to be, not where you want it to stay, not where you thought it would be yesterday, or where everyone else in the business needs it to be.
If OS X platform can be leveraged into the OS of the 21st Century, they have to do it. This would make software their main earner, meaning that hardware prices can fall because they don't need to make such high profits from them, resulting in much higher sales, and so that war will be run on looks alone: Ugly PC at $pic your price, or gorgeous Apple for the same money!
To do this just when MS is distracted toying with coffee tables and massive surface tablets - as ideas for their next OS - because the current one is *****, would hit MS hard, very very hard indeed.
And to get it right, with the entire PC using world still repeating the same old lame excuses about Windows issues being related to its needing to be compatible with so many different machines, would destroy MS's credibility.
There won't be a spare hanging branch on any tree in the valley! Redmond PD will be on suicide watch 24/7. Anyone want to take a bet on who'll jump first? I'm torn between Gates and Ballmer. No, Ballmer will probably just explode!
Oh, the next few days are going to be interesting.
What? You didn't look at it like that? Come on guys, skate to where the puck is going to be, not where you want it to stay, not where you thought it would be yesterday, or where everyone else in the business needs it to be.
Never
Honestly... Mac hardware sales would PLUMIT. Apple would NEVER allow that to happen.
If I could run OSX on a $1200 17 inch Dell laptop as opposed to a $2500+ lap top…. I would in a SECOND. I am as big of an Apple fan boy as the next guy…. But $1300 is a lot of coinage.
This is all about Apple setting the stage for future Mobile platforms.....
Honestly... Mac hardware sales would PLUMIT. Apple would NEVER allow that to happen.
If I could run OSX on a $1200 17 inch Dell laptop as opposed to a $2500+ lap top…. I would in a SECOND. I am as big of an Apple fan boy as the next guy…. But $1300 is a lot of coinage.
This is all about Apple setting the stage for future Mobile platforms.....
no one really expected the intel transition either, but this seems a bit abrupt as its not like apple is in dire straits right now, they were going no where with IBM so going to intel then was just about all they could do, and now they're being very successful. but who knows really.