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Mac OS X on a PC?

Durendal said:
That's not porting OS X to Intel hardware, that's simply letting another company sell the same thing with a different logo. Big difference.
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Yes, of course. But it would allow them to offer a secure alternative to Windows. Also, they´d probably make more profit from selling re-branded minis than they do from their current budget lines. But, yes, I do see the unlikelyness of this happening. It was just a though ;)
 
bgarnett said:
Mac OS X86 is the way forward! Why deny PC users the benefit of using a fantastic operating system merely because they aren't using a Power processor. Who cares if you have a beige box or a highly styled Apple box, so long as the experience is the same.
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because the experience would NOT be the same. as its been said. Mac stuff works because its all designed with each part considered together. everything works as one. instead of working rave party, with people everywhere. its more like one big techonological orgy. everyone pushing and touching...together.
mmmmmmmmm macintosh-tastic

;) :rolleyes:
 
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO !

Last thing we want is our OS on crappy, cheaply built pieces of junk.

NO.
 
narco said:
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.
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The hardware is not the problem with virus and spyware. Its software.

Since OSX is *nix it wont have the same virus problem since you as a user need to give the virus root rights.

90% of all virus is beacuse of Outlook/Exchange and IIS.
Spyware is all the strange programs people install + that IExplorer installs them without asking you first !

OS X on X86 would be great. As long powerPC is better and Apple have better hardware, we Apple fans will buy their hardware. They would loose any on this.
 
iGary said:
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO !

Last thing we want is our OS on crappy, cheaply built pieces of junk.

NO.
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Come now... let's have none of this lily-livered fence-sitting.
Say what you really mean...
 
I'd be all for it, but only if it was only a pilot project, say ~3 years, after then most PC users have bought a new computer, have used OS X, and are HOOKED. Then Apple would go back to what it's doing now, and they would have a good chunk of market share, after using Mac OS X for a couple years, you are willing to pay an extra grand for a powermac or a Mac Mini for the cheap people. I'd still buy a mac instead of an HP with OSX. Others may not in the short term, but long term, if Apple played their cards right, they could have made leaps and bounds in market share.

Additionally, at first they would have to charge a heavy licensing fee would need to be applied to compensate for lost profits.

In the end, I'm still happy with my PowerBook, and don't really care as long as Apple stays afloat.
 
It's the software, stupid.

Putting Mac OS (is the X still necessary?) on a PC is not a terribly difficult task. Linux, for example, runs on everything. The issue with Mac-on-x86, aside from the drivers for untold numbers of hardware components, is that all commercial software would need to be recompiled and sold separately from the PPC version. "Sorry sir, you needed to by x86 Mac Photoshop, not PPC Mac Photoshop. Refund? No."
 
iGary said:
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO !

Last thing we want is our OS on crappy, cheaply built pieces of junk.

NO.
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I resent you talking about iBooks that way.

<ducks>

:D
 
kirk26 said:
I'd rather pay less than $1000 for a fast PC then around $3000 for a Mac equivilent.
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Which is why it's not going to happen.

Hardware makes up 60% of Apple's profits. Do you think they'll just ditch this so you can run it on a PC? :rolleyes:

Besides, show us all a $1000 PC that is the equivalent to a G5 2.5 dual...
 
The Value in Mac isnt the hardware folks, sure apple does a nicer job of boxing the hardware and styling it but the value is in the OS. If Apple was to make a lite version of OSX this would be great for Apple. Could be on anyones desk for the price of................??? Apple would have the worlds attention again and get lots of folks on board making stuff for Mac. Maybe MacMini is testing those waters. Whole machine for $500 or a Intel vesion of OSX Lite for........$199. :D
 
Blue Velvet said:
Which is why it's not going to happen.

Hardware makes up 60% of Apple's profits. Do you think they'll just ditch this so you can run it on a PC? :rolleyes:

Besides, show us all a $1000 PC that is the equivalent to a G5 2.5 dual...
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Pretty much any PC out there right can take care of the job.
 
macnews said:
Today, there is an exploit that effects almost every browser out there but one - IE. Sure not a virus but a sign no matter what OS your are on, you have to be careful.
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Since this "exploit" is caused by font creators who use the same letterform for similar characters in different writing systems, I'm not sure you can call it a browser issue. Imagine if the number 1 looked just like an I looked just like a lowercase l in some font; you'd have a single-writing-system equivalent to this exploit: (DON'T CLICK THESE TWO URLS) http://WWW.MlCR0S0FT.COM = http://www.mi?r?s?ft.com (well, when I input it, the second url had both a Cyrillic "s" for the first "c" and two Greek omicrons for the first two "o"s, but now they've been changed to question marks by the non-Unicode-understanding forum software). The only reason IE is immune is because it doesn't support non-Latin URLs; if you have a plug-in that supports them, you're vulnerable, even on IE.
 
kirk26 said:
Pretty much any PC out there right can take care of the job.
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Weak. Please give us some links to these marvellous machines...

I suspect you have no idea what you're talking about.
 
kirk26 said:
Pretty much any PC out there right can take care of the job.
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Ah, how nice, a troll. Look, I've got a nice 2.6 GHz pc on my desk at work, and a 1.8 GHz G5 on my desk at home. My home machine smokes my work machine on the very same tasks.
 
LethalWolfe said:
I think you misunderstood what I was saying 'cause yer reply is nonsensical. If Apple stopped selling hardware they would have to crank up their software prices 'cause they make their money selling computers, not programs (hence my iTMS/iPod comparison).

People would keep buying FCP, but Apple wouldn't keep selling it dirt cheap. FCP HD is, roughly, a $2000+ software bundle being sold for $999.
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I need to stop posting after midnight!

I see your point (I had read your prior post as saying that FCP was priced too high.) and agree.
 
keysersoze said:
Hay, PC's come in all sorts of colors of plastic these days.

:D
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And with more neon and flashing light options than a Las Vegas strip joint :eek:
 
question?

he did say "three of the biggest PC makers" did'nt they?

could apple implement high hardware requirements
such as, ahhh 3.4 ghz p4 or a AMD 64 with with a EQUALY
HIGH dedicated GPU ect..., so that pc user experince is optimal for os X? (cause you know the windose morons will try to say "see i told you mac sucks" when they try to ru os X on there celeron)
 
Its about the Server not the Desktop

New guy here..

I believe it's not about the individual user at home. It's about the logical place in the PC world for OS X to fit... Servers. Apple has been ramping up their Enterprise channel for a few years with X Serve and SAN products. This would be logical to sell into those customers who would want the elegance of the OS X server for file, app, web hosting etc. but don't want to junk the hardware. It's essentially playing in the Linux space, after all Linux boxes running on Intel are everywhere in the Enterprise market...

Just my 2 cents.
 
why are you even debating this?

Jobs would never do this.
Control freaks are funny that way.
 
This can work - a variation on what you think

Let's not call it OS X on x86, let's call it Apple Windows or something that won't get them sued like Apple iWindows.

Let's not assume any Apple software compatibility (sure things could be recompiled for it, but let's assume that Apple doesn't bother except for the basics). Instead, let's assume a completely different strategy:

Making use of QEMU to virtualize the x86 + Wine or Wine X to allow Winodws programs to run at native speeds. Apple could potentially buy or partner with (Transgaming Technologies in order to acquire a version of Wine (Wine X) that has Direct X compatibility and works with tons of games.

So, what we would have is a rebranded OS X operating system (iWindows = stable, fast, pretty, secure) + Windows applications at native speeds. One additional benefit to this strategy is that QEMU, while virtualizing on x86, does code translation for PPC. All the IP that goes into windows compatibility for Apple iWindows would apply to running the same apps on PPC/OS X.

Could a strategy such as this work? It is interesting, isn't it? Apple would not be competing with itself, it would be competing with Windows and trying to get converts to Apple hardware.

With the CELL processor coming soon, QEMU may be ramped up to provide better x86 performance (on the CELL) than the fastest x86 as well. But Apple would need to invest quite a bit into this.

I am dreaming... but it is a winnable strategy, IMHO.
 
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