Mac OS X on a PC?

[Yvan256]

why not allow mac os 9 to be on pc and keep os x for mac os 9 is just as safe but still does not offer what os x can. pc people would buy to get rid of windows fall in love and buy a mac to get the better os and macs with os x will gain more market share.

Sorry if I offend anyone, but...

OS 9 sucks, I'd rather stay on Win98SE.

OS X, on the other hand, it a completely different beast. Windows XP is a different beast too: it can get infected by itself with no user intervention.

Sorry, but offering OS 9 for PCs wouldn't do squat. In fact it would damage Apple's image even further in the eyes of PC users ("THAT's Mac OS? Hahaha, losers", etc)

 

[Lanbrown]

Actually, those companies have been using Linux more and more, but can't replace Windows because there are no other consumer OSes that work. "If they wanted to switch, they would"? That makes no sense- Apple doesn't license OS X, how could they switch?

There are quite a few companies that use Macs as well as PeeCees. What keeps them from going all towards the Mac? Nothing except the cost of switching, which would cost MORE then the hardware alone.

 

[neonart]

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.

Again. Please note: No one has to switch. More Apple Products in more channels makes for more choices which equals more people with Apple products on their desks. That's it.

Think it doesn't make a difference?

Why is the iPod + HP the second best selling HD MP3 Player? What if the same applied to the Mini and iBook?

It's not all about EOS's, EOL's, PA-RISCS, Titanics, & TPS Reports*.


*See Office Space

 

[Lanbrown]

Windows XP Pro, full version, no computer: 300$US
Mac OS X 10.3, full version: 130$US +
iLife '05: 80$US +
G4/1.25GHz, 40GB, USB2, Firewire, DVI/VGA, ComboDrive: 290$US.

Once you count everything, the computer costs LESS than a full license for WinXP Pro, and only 90$US more than the upgrade license.

As the other idiots have pointed out (Napster), "Do the math".

When you buy OS X it would be considered an upgrade. MS sells both because you can build a PC or buy one without an OS. Then they sell the upgrade for people that want to upgrade an existing machine. Every Mac that is sold has an OS from Apple on it. So they don't need to offer a full version as well as an upgrade, they're all upgrades.

 

[neonart]

Sorry if I offend anyone, but...

OS 9 sucks, I'd rather stay on Win98SE.

OS X, on the other hand, it a completely different beast. Windows XP is a different beast too: it can get infected by itself with no user intervention.

Sorry, but offering OS 9 for PCs wouldn't do squat. In fact it would damage Apple's image even further in the eyes of PC users ("THAT's Mac OS? Hahaha, losers", etc)

As someone that still uses OS9 on a couple of machines at work I can tell you that

1) Yes it would not bring windows converts

2) It's ugly, but

3) It's an amazingly long lasting OS. I have 2 iMacs running the same OS that came with them 5 years ago. Just SW updates, no HD's, re-intalls, nothing. I also know quite a few people using their BEIGE macs running the OS they've had for near 10 years! Which sometimes dates to even before OS8.

So while I would not want to use OS9, or recommend it, and it did crash often, it's near impossible to kill it.

 

[Yvan256]

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

Have they ever been ready for anything? Hasn't Bill Gates said "the internet is a fad" or something?

Microsoft, eternal "me-too" follower who never gets it right.

 

[Yvan256]

Microsoft's as vunerable as they're going to get. I hope Apple recognizes this before another company such as google takes advantage of the situation.

They already recognized it.

They launched their lowest-cost computer ever. The Mac mini.

 

[Platform]

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.

Yes I agree

If apple becomes a big company such as MS then there will be all of these viruses and spyware
And the apple computers sold today have components that are optimized for each other, so they work better than a PC

 

[Lanbrown]

Again. Please note: No one has to switch. More Apple Products in more channels makes for more choices which equals more people with Apple products on their desks. That's it.

Think it doesn't make a difference?

Why is the iPod + HP the second best selling HD MP3 Player? What if the same applied to the Mini and iBook?

It's not all about EOS's, EOL's, PA-RISCS, Titanics, & TPS Reports*.


*See Office Space

No it doesn’t. HP sells the iPod, a lot of retailers sold out of the iPod during the holidays. Yet you could still find them at HP. What does that mean. If the HP inventory was elsewhere, Apple could have sold MORE iPods. While I’m sure HP is selling iPods, most people just don’t think about going to HP to buy one. I would venture to guess that most of them are sold when a new machine is ordered.

The tech support at HP is awful in regards to their products and OS X.

 

[Yvan256]

And don't give me that crap about a $3000 dollar mac vrs a cheap pc and the end of Apple hardware BS. Apple will sell even more hardware if they do this. Their superior desigs will insure that.

Their superior design (and superior price tag) always held 97% of the users. You think they'll magically open their wallets for some reason?

Apple's solution is not to bring OS X to the x86 platform. Their solution is to bring a low-cost Mac to the x86 users. It's called Mac mini. It's the first ever Mac to be priced under 500$US, and it's also the first Mac to ship without a mouse or keyboard.

It's simple, really:
iTunes for Windows (free, amazing, opens your eyes to the "Apple experience") --> iPod (costs more, but you finally "get it", you pay for quality, ease of use, integration with iTunes) --> Mac mini (not too expensive to try out OS X/iLife, which should be as nice as iTunes).

 

[GFLPraxis]

Perhaps a Knoppix-like OS X/x86 CD-only demo version would do the job... You can boot in OS X and play around, but it's limited in what it can do (iPhoto with a 100 photos limit, iMovie with 2 minutes clips limit, iDVD with a 200MB limit, etc).

Then again, someone would probably hack the distro and remove the limitations.

Anyway, Apple coming out with the Mac mini kinda kills any theory about OS X for the x86 platform. I can't wait for the mini to ship with Tiger, though... And perhaps 5400 RPM HDs as standard?

BRILLIANT.
You can not run any Mac programs, since they are PowerPC compiled. But if they sold a demo disk with iLife '05 (no limits) so that people could get used to using OS X without actually purchasing a Mac, but would still be required to buy an actual Mac to run Mac programs (like Final Cut)...that'd be awesome.

 

[GFLPraxis]

I also don't think that Cell processors are a choice for Apple. Not unless they once again force all of their applications developers to move away from PPC compiled software and generate new Cell binaries.

Nope, we are all stuck with IBM. I only hope IBM solves their manufacturing issues soon.

Remember, Cell processors have a PowerPC core in them, so PowerPC software will still run, just without the extra Cell performance boosts.

I don't necessarily think they will do that, but it IS an option.

 

[Platform]

Apple software was made and optimized for apple hardware NOT for a PC

Please don't do it

 

[GFLPraxis]

When you buy OS X it would be considered an upgrade. MS sells both because you can build a PC or buy one without an OS. Then they sell the upgrade for people that want to upgrade an existing machine. Every Mac that is sold has an OS from Apple on it. So they don't need to offer a full version as well as an upgrade, they're all upgrades.

Windows XP Pro upgrade is $200...

 

[Yvan256]

Millions of switchers in a week? There would be NO SOFTWARE for it. Remember, EVERY SINGLE PEICE OF MAC SOFTWARE is PowerPC compiled, and would therefore be unable to run on a computer with an x86 processor. It's physically impossible without emulation (which would essentially cut the x86 PC's speed to about 1/10th).

Apple wouldn't be as dumb as the Linux distros. They'd release "Virtual OS X for Windows", the same way Microsoft/Connectix have "Virtual PC" for Mac OS. That way, they bypass all requirements for drivers for the millions of PC components out there (from printers to chipsets on motherboards).

As far as speed is concerned, if Apple were to do it, I don't think it'd be as slow as 1/10 of the speed (just like Virtual PC isn't 10% of the speed either). Of course it'd be slower than a Mac, but it'd still run.

 

[archer75]

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.

The apps aren't taking the whole OS down with them. But I have to reboot to get the apps back.

I did try force quiting. No luck.

 

[eric_n_dfw]

Do you honestly think FCP HD would cost $999 if you didn't have to buy Apple's hardware to run it?

Yes.

FWIW, Fox used 2 G5's in a truck to edit together all of the highlight videos and whatnot they used during the superbowl. (in HD no less) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm..._mc/appleg5skona2poweredproductionofsuperbowl I doubt they cared what platform FCP runs on. This is the kind of customer that Apple is courting with FCP. I am just glad it's cheap enough for amature videographers like me to buy.

Look at Avid software solutions (the only real competition IMO), they START in the same price range as FCP.

I do wish they'd put batch capture into FC Express though, to compete better against Premier Pro. (but that might start to canabilize FCP sales to people like me)

 

[GFLPraxis]

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).

It exists, but x86 processors SUCK at emulation. You get at best 1/10th speed (remember, at best, it can go as low as 1/40th), so a 3 GHz P4 becomes a 300 mhz G3 (no AltiVec), with half the RAM, and no graphics card (no Quartz Extreme + slow proc = unresponsive GUI).

It's called PearPC.

I have it on my 2.6 GHz P4. Slow as heck, almost unusable.

 

[Yvan256]

apple would be foolish to sell out their os what they need to do is advertise the mac mini and advertise panther and with the mac mini selling in best buy that will give people a chance to see and use a mac everyones sick of windows and wants to find somthing new so if apple would just let more people know about their products im sure many windows users would be happy to make the switch

Indeed. I sure hope Apple has plans for TV ads and everything for the Mac mini. Make sure the promotions are everywhere just like for the iPod.

My guess is they're waiting until they've got units in stock before starting it all (why promote something if you already have 4 weeks wait lists for it).

Promote, Apple, promote! Why do you think people know about iPods?

 

[archer75]

Windows XP Pro upgrade is $200...

I have seen it for less. Though most people don't need pro. Home would work just fine for most. And it's under $99.

 

[eric_n_dfw]

well your lack of using os 9 is your prob. os 9 was a great os and in many ways better than os x. and its 1000000000x times better then windows

It is in no way better than OS X unless you are running it on a machine that doesn't support OS X!

Seriously, it feels a lot faster (esp. before Quartz Extreme), but you can say the same thing about Wordstar on MSDOS 5 compared to Word on XP.

I remember running FCP 3 (the first version that supported OS X) and finding that render speeds were almost identical in either OS. OS 9 was a little faster in that the app was able to hog the whole CPU but you couldn't do things like capture video in the background while surfing the web or using Office. (both of which my old dual G4 500 can do in OS X with no problems)

OS 9's lack of pre-emptive multitasking, protected memory and modern, object oriented architecture put's it in the same category as Win 95/98/Me as compared to Win NT/2K/XP. Actually, they are better in some ways in that they DID have the protected memory and pre-emptive multitasking for 32bit apps. Win9x was just a pain because it crapped on itself and required regular re-installs.

Seriously, most people I run into that see my Mac (I'm in a PC dominated software development shop where Solaris and Linux are our target platforms but Win2K is the standard desktop) still think OS 7/8/9 is what Mac OS is like - and that's a major reason they don't even give Mac a 2nd thought. When they actually sit in my office and see OS X for more than a minute, they usually change their tune.

There's a reason Job's put OS9 in a coffin at WWDC a couple years ago!

My OS food chain opinion (higher = better):
1. DOS/Win 3.1/Win9x
2. Mac OS Classic
3. Win NT/2K/XP
4. Solaris (but not for desktop)
5. Linux
6. Openstep/Mac OS X

 

[notjustjay]

Even if they did...

As has been mentioned already, even if this fabled OS X on x86 were to come to fruition, there would be no apps compiled for x86. Apple could recompile all their stuff, sure -- iLife, Final Cut, Logic, Soundtrack... but at what cost of time and stability? And then everyone else would have to follow suit, all the commercial software developers, all the shareware and freeware authors.

And perhaps the biggest piece of software that most computer users buy -- can you guess what it is? Microsoft Office, of course... do you think Microsoft would obligingly recompile their flagship software product for the competing OS?

Even supposing they did, you'd now have a mess of versions on the market. Did you want Office Professional? Or Standard edition? Student edition maybe? Did you want that for Windows, or for x86 on OS X, or for PPC on OS X?

I do like the idea of CELL processors in embedded devices running Apple-designed operating systems. I would love it if my cell phone was as easy to use as my iPod or my Powerbook.

Here's an idea: OS X, Media Center edition. There are some neat set-top boxes running Windows that are acting as personal media servers, PVRs, etc. Very slick concept. Just think how much slicker those media PC's could be if they were running Apple-designed software. Think TiVo, think satellite TV viewing guides. Apple could design an embedded version of OS X that could run all the firmware for all these multimedia devices.

 

[Yvan256]

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.

I'm exactly in the same boat as you (XP, no anti-virus, hardware router/firewall, etc). However, you and I aren't typical computer users.

"Normal" people really don't understand the basic concepts of computing, and will click/run/approve anything they feel like doing.

Also, try removing your firewall/router and connect XP directly to the 'net. The average time to get infected is under 15 minutes, I think. No need to do anything, you'll get port scanned, then infected. No user intervention required. That's on top of users clicking anything that moves.

So yes, it does happen all the times.

 

[Yvan256]

Both Cell, Niagara and Rock will change computing, as we know it.

It's computing, Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, not as we know it.

Ok, obscure reference to a spoof Star Trek song. Hey, it's 01:35 here.

 

[Xtremehkr]

This is getting quite heated.

I say do it Apple, make a play for the market, you have the OS and the software applications to back it up.