Mac OS X on a PC?

[Yvan256]

Point 1: Even if they Port OS X... software would still have to be recompiled to run on Intel/AMD processors.

Not if their x86 OS X version is a Mac emulator at the same time... Think "Virtual Mac", same as "Virtual PC" but the other way around. Sure it wouldn't be as nice (especially since it'd run on top of Windows) but it would allow Windows users to try the "Mac experience" (although in a slowish way).

Point 2: It might increase Apple's market share in the OS sector... but it would generate little extra revenue. I know very few people that actually bought Windows. The people I know who own Windows had it shipped with their new PCs.

Or got it "somewhere else".

Which is a problem, because when people purchase/upgrade their PC, they don't count the cost of their Windows license... Which can only make Macs seem to cost even more.

 

[MadMacs44]

Oh God no. I think if this were to happen, that would be the start of viruses and spyware on OS X. This would make Apple rich, but it'd really hit hard on Apple's Hardware I think.

I'm happy with the way things are now.

Fishes,
narco.

Here comes a RANT!!!!! No Apolgies

I have to agree here! Maybe the folks voting for this are former PC Users who want to go back to a cheap "slamufactured" box, but not me! Its all about the quality of whole unit/ brand here! I mean if everyone drove a Porche, they just wouldnt be cool anymore!!

2 Thumbs way down! I me really, think about it...Ever since I bought my first Apple (Not Mac) people have said...What did you buy that for? They are gone, that company will never last, they will be defeated, crushed bla bla bla..Apple really does not need more money. They really dont need more market share, they really dont even need people to switch in my opinion. Apple has mad it through far worse times. I mean really look at what happened during the Scully era??? And Amilioooooooooppps!

Some people will think I am being nearsited on this one, but when your a true believer in the product and have been forever, you throw comments like that on the pile and move along.

Look, some may say I am being elitist. Not really the case here folks. I have to work and earn every penny to buy my computers, just like the rest. But, once again, thrown on the pile.

The way I see it here, is now I finally get the last laugh I will never buy any computer other than an APPLE! Beisides if everyone is like Apple, who the heck would all the PC Companys copy

 

[jnasato]

No, no, no. A fairly homogeneous hardware platform is one of Apple's greatest advantages. And one of the reasons why OS X is rock solid. If it should be adjusted to fit a wide variety of architectures it would probably degenerate quickly...

WORD. Forget OS X on non-Apple computers... I would rather be forced into quality, than having the choice of being tempted by a cheaper and faster computer. Sacrificing stability for speed is horrible, but I might do it if a computer is cheap enough!!! Again, I don't want that choice...

 

[Yvan256]

Yeah, OS X for Intel is ridiculous.

Remember, BINARIES, people! All current software would NOT RUN on an intel processor. You'd have OS X and nothing to run on it.

Remember, EMULATORS, people! All current software WOULD RUN on an emulated PPC processor. You'd have a slower OS X and everything would run on it.

Think more along the lines of "Virtual OS X" instead of "OS X for x86".

Then again, IMO the gateway drug is iTunes, and it's a nice show-off for "the Apple experience". I even had a friend (who's not really pro-Apple nor anti-Microsoft) tell me "wow, it just works!".

 

[Yvan256]

but what if only ONE maker would (be allowed to) switch to OsX, say SONY?

Introducing: the Sonyos X

 

[archer75]

I don't see why people equate poor quality with PC's.

Yes, there are some poor quality parts but there are also many high quality parts. The beauty is you can pick out exactly the components you want.

A company like apple simply picked out those components for you. There are many companies on the PC side that do the same. It really is no different.

That said, my PC with Windows XP is by far more stable than this G4 I just got.

 

[Ups85]

Oh God no. I think if this were to happen, that would be the start of viruses and spyware on OS X. This would make Apple rich, but it'd really hit hard on Apple's Hardware I think.

I'm happy with the way things are now.

Fishes,
narco.

I see the total opposite happening. Many people don't buy apple products because they don't understand them, and are scared to branch out to a new operating system. If more pc makers adopted OS X, people would become more familiar with the OS. Also, having more pc makers adopt the OS will result in more niche PC software ported over to OS X. Once people begin to understand it, they will flock to apple, who makes the highest quality and best looking hardware.

I still don't know if this is the best route. Apple needs to reach a marketshare of 7-10%, which is a happy medium between having enough popularity to attract developers and preventing hackers from being attracted to the OS. If they make the right decisions, they can achieve this without adapting the OS to x86

 

[Lepton]

Cell? You bet!

It's a bit off topic but many people are mentioning it. You safely can bet your life that Apple will make Macs based on Cell. They will hint that they are looking at it at WWDC 2005, announce it before WWDC 2006, and release it January 2007.

 

[Yvan256]

A couple points

[...]

5. It's about time we declared open war on Windows.

Too late for that, Microsoft already declared war on its own users when they released Windows XP (more stable, but oh so open to attacks).

 

[Spock]

This would be like putting a Harley V-Twin on a Honda Shadow.

 

[archer75]

Too late for that, Microsoft already declared war on its own users when they released Windows XP (more stable, but oh so open to attacks).

You make it sound like this happens all the time. Out of the box it is more insecure, i'll give you that.
But if you know what you're doing there is absolutely nothing to worry about. I've never been hacked and never had a virus. And it takes so very little effort on my part to prevent this.
I don't run an antivirus program. And I don't run a software firewall either. Just behind a router.
I know what apps have spyware and I don't install them.

 

[digitalbiker]

Why do you say this?

That said, my PC with Windows XP is by far more stable than this G4 I just got.

Why do you say this? Are you having troubles with a G4?

I think by and large both Windows XP and OS X are very stable. If you are having an issue you might have faulty hardware in need of repair.

 

[trtam]

Offer...

Why don't we offer Mac OS 6, or Mac OS 7 to them?

 

[digitalbiker]

Poor little Honda!

This would be like putting a Harley V-Twin on a Honda Shadow.

Yeah! Why would you want to cripple a great bike like the Honda with a noisey, vibrating Harley V-Twin.

 

[archer75]

Why do you say this? Are you having troubles with a G4?

I think by and large both Windows XP and OS X are very stable. If you are having an issue you might have faulty hardware in need of repair.

I have had an app crash at least once a day. Various apps. And they lockup so hard I cannot close them, I have to reboot.
Once it was iTunes, another time it was disk utility. I had some other wierd anomolies.
Today it's running fine though.
Was playing around with some apps and must say I am very dissapointed by iMovieHD. Would like to try Final Cut to see what that's all about. But so far I prefer Pinnacle Studio for windows.

My windows xp box runs solid for a week, never turning it off. It runs Folding@Home 24/7 and sometimes some P2P apps as well. During the day I do all my normal stuff on it. Runs great.

 

[adamjay]

just think about it. if this happened tomorrow, you could have OSX on a 64bit notebook.

about ***** time!!!

 

[digitalbiker]

Sounds odd to me.

Seems odd to me that your applications are actually locking up OSX. I very rarely if ever have had an application lock up OSX since OS X 10.1.

Did you try just force quiting the apps? opt-apple-esc key sequence.

If this is truly the case, I would suspect faulty memory.

The iLife apps such as iMovieHD are nice general apps for the average user. Anything more requires pro apps and G5 processor. 1GB ram doesn't hurt either.

 

[hob]

This would be the worst move apple could make. I think everyone who's opinion I respect on this board has said pretty much the same thing. I don't think there should be any more discussion on the point! It's a bad idea, it shouldn't happen. The reasons are numerous and all totally valid.

Hob

 

[Lanbrown]

What are you talking about? Leave your cubicle now!

Noboby said HP or anybody will "switch" to selling Macs only. They just have to offer it. If your vendor is HP and now they have Minis (or any other mac) for sale and you have a department that can use those machines. Bingo.

PO#332678

200 HP Presario 67352792982-8267258/29982781 (or whatever model #)
38 HP 15" LCD 768-128
38 HP Mini 1.25/512/40
6 HP iBook 1.25/256/40
18 HP LaserJet 4000 Toner cartridges

Why not?

For one, it doesn't help HP or Apple. There are companies that use Macs you know, and they go to Apple to get them. Nothing is stopping anybody from going to Apple. Also, the discount that Apple gives is quite pathetic; something that doesn't really help them either.

What would Apple get from HP? A better distribution channel? Seems to me that Apple is doing that on their own, in fact companies are coming to them. BestBuy, Walmart, etc. The Mac Mini will be found in stores. If Apple could get Walmart (as much as I hate them) to offer the Mac Mini, that would be a big outlet.

You still miss the issue that companies just cannot just one day say they're going to switch. Training is the biggest reason as is software and testing. Want proof of this? Itanic. HP is pushing that hard as a replacement to its PA-RISC processor. Applications need to be recompiled, guess how HP is doing? Yep, customers are leaving. If you have to change, which they do as the chip is no longer being progressed, you might as well as look to see what the competition offers. After all, it's the same amount of work no matter how you look at it. The competition might even be willing to assist you more then HP is. The last survey of companies that use the PA-RISC or Alpha processor, over half had no plans to switch to the Itanic in the next ten years if at all. A good majority of them are in the not at all category. Very little high-end kit stays installed for that long. It's big money and support lasts for three to five years after EOS and then it moves to EOL status. Companies start looking around the EOS date. Switching costs a lot of money, it's not cut and dry as you seem to believe it is.

 

[Yvan256]

IMHO, I think one of the reasons that the Mac is such a great platform is that
the OS and application software take advantage of a stable/known
platform (i.e., video card and superdrive, for example). Attempting to port
to a crappy machine with one of a variety of different drives and video
card would start to make OS X look crappy.

I was thinking the same, but then it hit me: iTunes for Windows hasn't seen much problems on the hardware side, really... (or did it?)

I still say that "Virtual Mac for Windows" is the way to go (if the plan is to offer a glimpse of OS X to Windows users). Then again iTunes itself is taste enough (IMO).

 

[sjl]

Just some random thoughts on this subject.

First comment. OS X on x86. It would not surprise me in the slightest to find out that Apple is actively maintaining a port of OS X to the x86 architecture. Why? Because there are certain classes of bugs that will show up when you port to different architectures which won't appear if you code on the one arch. Endian issues, for example, can be good to get rid of; it also helps to make the code that much cleaner (often, cute hacks which work on one platform won't work on another.)

Having said that, though, I'd be extremely surprised if Apple ever released it for public consumption. Darwin, yes -- Darwin is out and available for x86, but the Aqua layer is not, and probably never will be.

Second comment. Application support. NeXTStep has, right from the word go, supported so-called "fat binaries": binaries with support compiled in for multiple architectures. This is still present in OS X, and is likely to be put to good use once apps start fully supporting the G5, so that G4 support doesn't have to be completely thrown out the window. The same setup can be used for x86 support, but for that to happen, Apple would have to release x86 cross compilation suites to application vendors. They wouldn't release OS X on x86 until those suites had been seeded for some time, to allow the application marketplace to get ready; I can't see anything of the sort happening any time in the foreseeable future.

Third comment. Apple's likely future paths would almost certainly include Cell (as other posters have said, the core CPU in Cell is a PowerPC derivative; the ancillary CPUs aren't, and would be used for other purposes), as well as whatever IBM will call the cut-down POWER5 (the 980?) and later CPUs. It's a question of what they can engineer into the case without compromising the stability and reliability of the system as a whole. Cell is actually an interesting one; it would likely be used in a "G6" line, because of the ancillary CPUs, unless IBM or others release a cut-down Cell. Too early to tell yet.

Finally: licensees of OS X on other PPC-based systems. I could see Apple doing this down the road; just not yet. Apple's marketshare is too fragile right now. If it jumped to 10%, I'd not be surprised to see a limited clone market be permitted, with appropriate QA advice from Apple to try to maintain the stability of the platform, in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the market; but it's not something Apple would let slip until it actually happened. Having said that, it wouldn't surprise me if this didn't happen either. Long term (five to ten years), I'd call it a fifty fifty shot; I wouldn't be placing any bets at this stage, either way.

 

[Lanbrown]

Now that's what I also envision. Especially Sony, because it was kinda weird to have Sony Japan's CEO on stage simply to talk about HD-Video...

Who knows, maybe the PS3 will run OS X somehow... (yes, you read me right).

Companies can compete in one-arena and form partnerships in others. MS was pushing Passport, others were pushing Liberty. I would say that Sun competes with IBM and HP. HP competes with IBM and Sun. IBM competes with HP and Sun. Sun and IBM compete with Intel. But yet all of the companies are involved in the Liberty Alliance project.

You had someone from Sony showing their product with a Mac, so what. Sony does sell camcorders you know. Sony does use Firewire. Yet Sony sells PeeCees, MP3 players and a music service. Apple competes with MS, but MS offers software for the Mac. It’s all about money.

The PS3 would never run OS X, yeah you heard me right. Why? OS X is more then just an OS, it’s a collection of software. The basis of OS X is BSD. The kernel is all that Sony would want, not the GUI and the rest of the apps. They don't need Apple to get the kernel.

 

[maya]

I don't think Apple or Steve Jobs is that stupid to let companies license the OS from Apple.

This will be bad on so many grounds, first people will go why are there no drives, patches, keys, etc... for this and that hardware that is over 5 years old, and software included.

Second people always have some reason to complain, sure the OS is now on x86 however people will gripe that they have to buy new version of they software.

Third hardware companies will place pressure on Apple to lower the price of licensing to sell more machines and gain more market share.

Forth we will see a whole new dawn of viruses, trojans, etc....there is no way Apple can keep up patching all this, at present OS X's presence is small enough that it can take a week for a security update, this will make it worse.

Fifth hardware companies will give they customers a choice, Windows, Linux, OS X.....what do you think people will choose? People will look at the software available for Windows OS and Mac OS, look at cost and say I will live with Windows until the application that I use on it is fully supported on the Mac.

One of the reason why people do not switch is because Mac software titles that are also available on Windows are stripped down. If it is on par with the Windows version and also pricing this will be a no brainer.

Sixth, Apple makes way more money on hardware then software. Even if they license iLife and OS X to x86 companies nothing much will happen. It will only ruin it for Apple in the long run.

Once OS X and all the other apps go x86, I will not be upgrading from that point.

Not going to happen, its an x86 geeks wet dream at best?

 

[Lanbrown]

I'm so conflicted BUT...

I want OSX to enlighten the world of our window-using friends, but I don't want apple hardware to go belly-up. Maybe if apple used PC manufacturers to build specially branded, basic (but still intel based) versions of HP or Dell computers, and market them under the mac mini as larger, yet cheaper mac machines.

And how would they only allow it to be installed on those machines? You would still have the same basic hardware. Unless you wanted to make major to the hardware, which would no longer offer economies of scale and thus, no longer cheap.

 

[Lanbrown]

All I have to say about this and the news of the new CELL chip from IBM and Sony, with extreme potential for Apple, is that we Mac users don't even know the half of what's going on at Apple right now.

If you are confident about what you've known about computers and networking then hold on! I think the next wave of computing is upon us, and trust me Steve Jobs is in the driver's seat. From what I've seen and read I believe that "Tiger" will be the last Mac OS for that "traditional" computing platform that we have come to know in the past 25 years.

If we knew just a little of what is about to be unleashed upon the computing world we would all cream in our pants. I think in the next 2-3 years it will be a very good thing to be a Mac owner.

And not to put Microsoft down, but I don't think that they are fully prepared for what's about to happen.

Two companies are offering radical chips, both to be released in volume next year. The traditional CPU designs will have a hard time keeping up. There are two companies that do a lot in the processor design realm, IBM and Sun. AMD for the longest time followed Intel and Intel just lives off their customer base. Both Cell, Niagara and Rock will change computing, as we know it.