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Lack of 'Mac' Branding Raises Questions

Apple is growing beyond the Mac ... as Computer fell off their corporate naming conventions long ago, the Mac really never did.

The iPhone and iPod Touch are platforms beyond the Mac, likely much tighter integration between Me and these products with the update.
 
I don't think this is going to be announced at WWDC, but if it is, it will be the biggest shocker unleashed at any Apple invent since the introduction of that Mac (that's pretty hard to top).
 
Why not?

Mr. Dell has already stated he would love to sell Mac OS X on his pc's. And if you Mr. Jobs you control whats in them.. XP was a good operating system when it had decent hardware... If jobs can say only this and this go into our computers then there is alot of money to be made here. even if they raised the price to say $300.00 for Mac OS X. that still under shoots vista.. And lets face it right now is the prime time to give customers an alternatives. Many people are requesting to go back to XP. I said about a year ago in 7 years ago Apple's OS would have 40% of the market share.. If this is true I would have under estimated quite a bit.
 
I don't know how else to say it; that would be incredibly stupid. The single most important aspect to Apple's superior quality is their tight integration of hardware and software. They've said so themselves frequently. Besides, everything has been coming up roses for them lately and their market share is advancing across the boards while everyone else's declines. Why would they make a strategic change at this point? If anything, I would expect the rest of the market to be moving back to the vertically integrated model. The days of the commodity PC dominating the market are numbered.
 
bitWrangler said:
Yeah, right.

Has anyone bothered to look at Apple's financials? Exactly where do they make the overwhelming majority of their money, I'll give you a hint, it 'aint OSX sales. It's hardware, they use their software to pump a lot of high margin hardware. All those folks who are flooding Apple Stores in droves are now going to be given the opportunity to flock down to the Dell or HP area in nearly every large retailer to purchase similar but cheaper hardware, no, I don't think so either. Apple exposing themselves to possible hardware price wars, no, I don't think so.

Others have mentioned the more obvious explanations for the various points of "evidence", so I won't repeat them.

You'll see licensed Mac "clones" way before you'll see OSX running on standard PC's.
Click to expand...

Bingo. Unless they have some grand master plan, selling OS X would be suicide.
 
What I am saying is apple controls everything right down to the chipset. And say they only support x,y,z for those who would like to build thier own. You have a lot of people trying to build there own right now because of the steep price of an apple brand. It would supply a cheaper solution for those pockets that are less endowed.
 
"Hello I'm a Mac...and I'm a PC - Commercial

If this speculation holds true... Imagine what the Apple "Hello, I'm a Mac / PC" commercial would be.

"Hello, Im a Mac"

"and I'm a ....a....PC?" Or am I?..

I can visualize the PC wearing a leopard jump suit when he says it too ... hahahah!:D
 
Stridder44 said:
Bingo. Unless they have some grand master plan, selling OS X would be suicide.
Click to expand...

The grand master plan may be to make the computer irrelevant. Offices will still have them, but all the things you do with a computer at home (and away) can and will be done on phones and other mobile devices. Apple can still sell it's hardware and gain the premium for design advantages while slowly weening itself off a dying product. Imagine, for example, an iPhone Plus tablet that links to your HDTV as a monitor, using BT mice and KB, using TimeCapsule for storage ... there's no need for a Mac or PC or anything we traditionally call a computer at home anymore.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I would love that. I want to get rid of my XP system.
 
chicagdan said:
The grand master plan may be to make the computer irrelevant. Offices will still have them, but all the things you do with a computer at home (and away) can and will be done on phones and other mobile devices. Apple can still sell it's hardware and gain the premium for design advantages while slowly weening itself off a dying product. Imagine, for example, an iPhone Plus tablet that links to your HDTV as a monitor, using BT mice and KB, using TimeCapsule for storage ... there's no need for a Mac or PC or anything we traditionally call a computer at home anymore.
Click to expand...
Apart from a large chunk of Apple's market is creatives and hobbyists, who wouldn't settle for a phone. Anyone who makes content needs "real" computers, and traditionally that's the market Apple have always been strongest in. If all else fails that little niche will still be supportive.

Mobiles aren't going to replace the desktop any time soon. The internet is not going to replace traditionally developed software any time soon. There are some people who only need a dumb terminal and internet apps, but for them; the reason to get an osX machine is even less. osX works because of its native software. ..? If you're just going to use browser based apps there's no reason not to use an incredibly cheap Ubuntu box or, well.. Any OS.
 
We're probably wrong, but it is not just banners ...

Peace said:
I don't see where folks are getting something out of nothing in these banners. Apple has no need to put "Mac OSX Leopard" on it. Everybody knows what OSX Leopard is on.
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It is not about those banners, it is about how Apple and the market are evolving:

- Apple diversifying on hw platforms for multiple devices but maintaining the base OS (something that was not possible with classic iPods). What (Open)Solaris can do (ZFS, virtualization ...), and how Apple is adding support for this type of stuff, also things like llvm. The capabilities new processors offer (multiple threads, multiple cores, support for virtualization). The fact that it takes a little more than bravery to abandon MS's bossom (both for users and developers). The long term danger of GNU/Linux becoming the only OS and reducing the rest of sw companies to application developers. The fact that others are trying to run OS X on non-approved hw by all means. The fact that OS X is missing some capabilities for use in data centers that other OSs have.

- Apple avoiding the highest size market segment on its traditional model (hw + sw), as it does not fit there. Apple doing versions of its applications to run on other OSs to support use/development/growth of these new devices. Even adding support for 3rd party applications that do not run on OS X on these devices. Apple making it easy to run other OSs on "its" hw. The release of more online services by Apple not tied to the mac moniker (me), and probably neither to having an Apple's machine. Apple's services strategy with media.

- The deeply hw-agnostic mindset of Apple (planning to release OS X on multiple hw archs from the start like NT and Next did, keeping the Intel build ...). The experience Apple has with mature virtualization/emulation/interpretation techniques (from Classic, to multi-arch OS, to its own version of Java, to the evolution of ObjC, to Rosseta). The (almost?) problem-free Tiger transition, running both in PPC and Intel. The fact that many OS services are becoming 'infrastructure'. The fact that the whole Vista/OS X story is starting to look like a cat and mouse race.

And the possibility of (finally) releasing a cleaned-up (legacy free) version of OS X (Snow Leopard?).

So, there are many little pointers that make some type of virtualization strategy a winner for Apple. But then Apple will anounce something completely different. :p
 
Columbo X said:
If they provide OS X for the PC and do it well, what motivation would someone have to invest in mac hardware?
Click to expand...

Same as before, it fulfills a need. Those who want style and space saving will go to Apple. Those who want practicality and expandability will have their options.
 
mixel said:
Apart from a large chunk of Apple's market is creatives and hobbyists, who wouldn't settle for a phone. Anyone who makes content needs "real" computers, and traditionally that's the market Apple have always been strongest in. If all else fails that little niche will still be supportive.

Mobiles aren't going to replace the desktop any time soon. The internet is not going to replace traditionally developed software any time soon. There are some people who only need a dumb terminal and internet apps, but for them; the reason to get an osX machine is even less. osX works because of its native software. ..? If you're just going to use browser based apps there's no reason not to use an incredibly cheap Ubuntu box or, well.. Any OS.
Click to expand...

You're stuck in a status quo vision of the iPhone. Now that apps can be developed for it, there's no reason why the iPhone and other mobile devices can't quickly scale up to the demands of computers for home users.

Like I said in my last post, I agree that business needs -- whether those offices are at home or work -- demand a computer, either laptop or desktop. But Apple decided long ago to break out of that niche and try to create a new consumer market.

Whether the computer survives or not, Apple sees its future increasingly in mobile devices.
 
Project said:
Seems to be just a branding exercise.

The authors of the original article are adding 2 + 2 and coming up with 10.
Click to expand...
Okay, before you start telling me I'm doing some fuzzy math, please realize that even as the author of the original piece I don't really expect clones. I said:

John Gruber of Daring Fireball seems to think that Apple is simply unifying the iPhone OS and Mac OS branding, and this is probably the simplest and most logical explanation.
Click to expand...

...

This is the part where I come up with some absurd speculations.
Click to expand...

...

Will this actually happen? I’m not holding my breath.
Click to expand...

So did I go out on a limb with my speculation? Yes. Do I actually expect it to happen? Not really.

The one thing I will say is that Apple isn't afraid of doing the unexpected, and that even though it likely won't happen, cloning isn't totally out of the realm of possibility. This was kind of the point of the entire article.
 
MacRumors said:


TheAppleBlog raises a question that has been on the minds of many this evening regarding the notable lack of "Mac" branding on WWDC banners. Their conclusion? Is Apple planning on distributing OS X to computers other than Macs?

At MacRumors, we try to avoid purely speculative conclusions, but in so much as it's been on the minds of readers, we'll post this as a discussion piece. A few rumored changes could be positioning Apple for a transition to sell OS X for generic PCs:

- Changing .Mac to Me.com (platform neutral)
- OS X Leopard (not Mac OS X Leopard)
- 10.6 to be Intel only (dropping PowerPC would be necessary)
- "No new features" in 10.6 could be due to resources devoted to just making 10.6 "PC compatible"

Again, this should not even be considered a rumor. Only speculation, and it assumes that the above rumors are, in fact, true.

Article Link
Click to expand...

don't you mean - "just making 10.5 PC compatible"?
 
Although selling OSX on PCs will greatly increase (double, triple etc) Apple's OS X marketshare, I think that this would greatly decrease the amount of Macs they sell. People dont spend $1000,$2000,$3000 on a Mac just because it looks good, or JUST because of the specs, they do it so they can get the Operating System and the programs it comes with and can run. The reason Macs are more expensive than their PC counterparts is because you are really paying for the OS.

Bad move Apple, bad move. (My opinion :D)
 
jbaird77 said:
Although selling OSX on PCs will greatly increase (double, triple etc) Apple's OS X marketshare, I think that this would greatly decrease the amount of Macs they sell. People dont spend $1000,$2000,$3000 on a Mac just because it looks good, or JUST because of the specs, they do it so they can get the Operating System and the programs it comes with and can run. The reason Macs are more expensive than their PC counterparts is because you are really paying for the OS.

Bad move Apple, bad move. (My opinion :D)
Click to expand...

Agreed. There are plenty of niche PCs that I would love to run Mac OS X on. Tablet, 19" SLI equipped laptops. the HP Blackbird, true ultraportables, etc.

If Mac OS X ran on PCs, then I don't think I'd be buying too many Macs. There'd be some here and there, but I would have a lot more PCs in my house.
 
chicagdan said:
The grand master plan may be to make the computer irrelevant. Offices will still have them, but all the things you do with a computer at home (and away) can and will be done on phones and other mobile devices. Apple can still sell it's hardware and gain the premium for design advantages while slowly weening itself off a dying product. Imagine, for example, an iPhone Plus tablet that links to your HDTV as a monitor, using BT mice and KB, using TimeCapsule for storage ... there's no need for a Mac or PC or anything we traditionally call a computer at home anymore.
Click to expand...

Seriously? I mean yeah that sounds cool and all for a minute, but when people actually need to get work done or want to do more than:

a) browse the internet

b) use notepad/open office's equivalent of Word

c) run terminal

we'll all look back to a desktop/laptop. This sounds like the same fanfare I hear from Ubuntu people all the time. "EeePCs (and other ultra-micro-mini PCs, that have virtually no power in them) are going to replace the desktop! Everything will be online!" Yeah right. Maybe one day, but I you have to be daydreaming to think for a second that "internet apps" and Ubuntu are going to replace a desktop/laptop. People don't want less of a computer. Hard drives are only getting bigger and cheaper. People want MORE HDD space and MORE comp. power, not less.

The ONLY case I could maybe see this happening is in offices. The Home desktop/laptop is far from dead my friend.
 
Steve Jobs reconsidering the licensing of the Mac OS? Doesn't Apple pride itself on meticulously controlling "the whole widget"? Why would they suddenly decide to deal with the other CRAPPY hardware manufacturers?

Pearls before swine. Steve wouldn't do it.
 
Why no many negatives? I would personally love to see Mac OS X on my PC. Also, it would mean that I could possibly reuse my PC and it could open up OS X to far more people. Not everyone wants to buy a super-expensive PC (look online, for £500 you can get a PC that can ace any Mac) just so they can run OS X.
 
Stridder44 said:
Seriously? I mean yeah that sounds cool and all for a minute, but when people actually need to get work done or want to do more than:

a) browse the internet

b) use notepad/open office's equivalent of Word

c) run terminal

we'll all look back to a desktop/laptop. This sounds like the same fanfare I hear from Ubuntu people all the time. "EeePCs (and other ultra-micro-mini PCs, that have virtually no power in them) are going to replace the desktop! Everything will be online!" Yeah right. Maybe one day, but I you have to be daydreaming to think for a second that "internet apps" and Ubuntu are going to replace a desktop/laptop. People don't want less of a computer. Hard drives are only getting bigger and cheaper. People want MORE HDD space and MORE comp. power, not less.

The ONLY case I could maybe see this happening is in offices. The Home desktop/laptop is far from dead my friend.
Click to expand...

Well, friend, I wasn't talking about applications on the Internet. In fact, I explicitly stated that I was talking about robust applications ON THE MOBILE DEVICES.

It's not so far off, friend. You could pack an Atom processor into one of these babies and have a great deal of processing power in your pocket. And you can pack these babies with RAM. The one thing you'll lack is storage, granted.

But it isn't such a stretch to imagine a wireless docking station sitting at home with your storage and display and connection devices. You'll be able to run your more power hungry apps at home while carrying around your device for low power needs.

I'm sorry that you lack the vision to see where the computer is heading. Just because it isn't there now doesn't mean it can't get there, fast. The future is mobile.
 
I think not.

That said, I'm a Windows user who'd love to jump over to OS X. The problem is that I'm one of those people who builds my own machines from NewEgg. I'm not too keen on buying an all in one when I already have a very nice two monitor setup. I like upgrading my machines to extend their lifespans, so that nixes the iMac and the Mini, especially with their lack of discrete GPUs.

That leaves the MacPro, which is like barbecuing with a flamethrower. I don't need it, and won't pay for it. Apple either needs to introduce an upgradeable headless Mac, or open up the damned OS already. Failing either of those eventualities my next computer will likely be a Hackintosh that I assemble after ensuring maximum hardware compatibility.
 
With all the speculation going on, is anyone also taking note that the "Mac vs PC" campaign is coming to a close? Of course that's somewhat high-level speculation also but...

Consider all the points mentioned in the OP here:

MacRumors said:
- Changing .Mac to Me.com (platform neutral)
- OS X Leopard (not Mac OS X Leopard)
- 10.6 to be Intel only (dropping PowerPC would be necessary)
- "No new features" in 10.6 could be due to resources devoted to just making 10.6 "PC compatible"
Click to expand...

and then couple that with the (alleged) closing/shutting down of the "Mac vs PC" ad campaign - it should have died two years ago but that's just me - does anyone see the possibility?

I do... but then again I've been considering it for years now. I still say it's logistically impossible for Apple to do it, but what if... what if...
 
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