OS X on Intel not so crazy

[zim]

very true robodweeb, they have to buy it to try it... just like a good old book burning. they might want to protest and make a noise but they first have to have valid reason and in order to do that they must buy the books to burn. hehe apple wins in the end. (by books i mean osx)

but then there are the people that have pcs because they were told that is what they need to conform to the industry. and there are the users, mostly home users, that would never buy an os not even a windows update because they just don't understand... so IF we were to see os on a pc i think we need a manufacturer commit to having the system come pre-installed... i think the sorny (oops, sony) line would be a good target simply because they share some common strategies.

 

[Falleron]

Re: What we need is...

Forget the idea of OSX on intel! The mac will die a slow death if it was ported!

 

[robodweeb]

Whoa, latalian! Don't dare try to label any of us as "Anti-Mac" simply because we're discussing ways to expand Apple's market. You can certainly sit there, an Apple island in a rising sea of wintel mediocrity, and be as smugly superior as you wish, but that doesn't contribute much to Apple's bottom line.

Many wintel boxes are sold to people who don't know any better and don't have the tech know-how or financial means of trying other options. They continue to buy new wintel boxes because that's what they already have and Apple doesn't offer them suffiicient , affordable incentive to dump their existing investment. However, a couple of hundred bucks is an affordable option to get a *taste* of the Apple experience - on their existing hardware - and incentive to buy Apple's consumer devices. Once people have money invested in something, they are more likely to keep investing and that is a viable option to re-direct some of the masses away from from their wintel spending inertia and towards an Apple spending habit.

Of course, OS X on Intel needn't work as well as on Apple's computers ... it just needs to work well enough to get them interested, and at a cost that is not prohibitive. Slick design style, intellectual ad campaigns, and tech proficiency haven't been enough so far to inaugurate this change on a large scale. No one is suggesting that Apple re-direct all their efforts in this direct ... my only argument is that there is a viable market here and that it won't kill Apple to exploit it.

It doesn't matter whether Apple *likes* Sony or *likes* Microsoft or *likes* whomever ... they are all competitors - in some cases and to some degree, partners - in the markets Apple has targeted. Apple can choose to ignore them or Apple can choose to exploit them. I don't think either path will kill Apple, as extremists have claimed.

What will kill Apple is an inability to adapt and compete in the marketplace and your attitude contributes much more to this inability than anything we've discussed in this thread.

 

[Falleron]

You have got me wrong, I am a complete mac fan. Thats why I dont want OSX on intel machines, give pc users a poor version + they says its cr*p (dont move to the actual mac), give them a good version and people move from mac hardware to pc hardware because its cheaper. Apple cant win!!! Apple needs the hardware sales to carry on development of the OS and other software. Just look at Microsoft, they make all their money on office + games and not the OS.

 

[joey j]

Robodweeb: Good points. Apple could conceivable port OS X to x86, as long
as they have sufficient income from other sources to sustain themselves.
If, in (say) five (probably not) or ten (possible) years the bulk of
Apple's revenue comes from their digital hub devices (marginalising the
Mac's contribution) then yes, Apple probably could port OS X to other
platforms, IA-64 and x86 being the obvious candidates.

So far I have asked, in various osx-on-intel threads here, at least half a
dozen times in the last week how Apple is going to overcome the
applications' barrier to entry. The applications' barrier to entry -- lack
of apps -- is going to hamper any introduction of OS X to alternative
platforms, and Apple is not going to want to throw money at a project like
that without appreciable benefit.

 

[Digidesign]

OSX already exists on the Wintel platform. It's called Windows XP, and look how successful that is. (nyuk, nyuk)

But seriously, the strength of the Apple OS is its integration with Mac hardware. You speak as though the porting of an OS to a sea of reliable & unreliable part manufactorers is trivial. Look at Microsoft and how many revisions and thousands of OS builds they have for Windows. And they still have problems. I admire that they can even be where they are today (especailly for windows 2K's stability) but let's face it, OSX's strength is in its native relationship to Apple's hardware. The porting of the software would be a trecherous and burdensome ordeal, one that I think we'd only see at the end of Apple's road and not at this point in time.




[Edited by Digidesign on 01-08-2002 at 04:17 PM]

 

[dantec]

Macworld has passed...

And I still have no idea what "where no PC has ever gone before" was meant to stand!

 

[amichalo]

Originally posted by zim
why? why do we even care? it would not effect my world at all if osx ran on a pc...

Oh I bet it would effect your life quite a bit:
(1) Reduced barrier to entry (no new hardware) = larger customer base
(2) More OS X customer base = more OS X applications
(3) Two chipsets to support = having to compile applications twice
(4) Why compile twice when there are more Intel users?
(5) Intel becomes primary chip supplier for Windows, OS X, and Linux
(6) Government breaks up Intel monopoly
(7) Starbucks on every corner

(okay, so I don't know what 7 is)

 

[cplmd]

You think OS X on Intel is good?

Why?

I think there are two area to consider perhaps not:

1. Apple's view
It's a company - meaning it is suppose to make money - enough to turn a profit and make it's shareholders happy. How do they do this? Apple has about 6 to 8 million computer users under its control. That may sound harsh but true when you think about it. Basically, Apple has a monopoly, albeit a voluntary one. Think about when Jobs returned, he not only killed off the Newton (a mistake) but cancelled the licence for the Mac OS to other hardware vendors (brilliant). This allowed him to control the whole vertical market. Hardware, OS, some applications. This saved Apple tons of work trying to get all the different hardware configs to work under their OS. This is the same problems that makes Windows so crash prone, trying to be all things to all hardware = blue screen of death.
So, from this group of 7 million users, Apple knows it can keep a profit coming in if it plays it's cards right and makes no big money draining mistakes - and I think an Intel port would be such a mistake, because......

2. End users
can hardly be expected to shell out $100+ more dollars to install an OS on their shinny new PC that makes their entire software investment useless. And that investment pales in comparison to that made by the corporate types in the datacenters and IT shops of business.

So will Apple invest in porting to an Intel base, even a limited one? No, most of those people won't buy it. And it doesn't need to. It just needs to innovate enough to keep the 7 million sheep buying often enough.

As to the Sony stuff, they are Apples main competitor, from the cool PC's they make to the mp3 players the put up against the iPod. Sony is the gorilla here and could care less about Apple's survival nor do they need Apple's survival.

Personally, I would love to see Apple bring out more consumer devices, they are what I use daily and hourly and minutely sometimes - more than a laptop or desktop. We could use some good Apple UI engineering for ways to use video - broadcast or DVD et al., as well as integration in home media centers.

Frankly, if Apple want's a significant share of market, I only see it happening like the first time. Xerox PARC developed the graphical UI that free us from command line code and made desktop computing fun. But it took Apple to make it available to the rest of us. Again, Xerox PARC has come up with many aspect of ubiquitous computing and Apple could lead the way again for bringing UbiComp to the market.

 

[Devination]

Have a problem with Anti-Mac?

Originally posted by latalian
I am freightened at how many people in this thread are willing to give nearly ten years of apple's work to the PC market.

Apple has spent a very long time trying to make their computers the best thing, not their OS.

Apple has worked all it's life to destroy the PC ever since IBM.

I'm also freightened at how many Anti-Mac people are here on a supposably Mac loyal website.

Well then... Greetings everyone! I am a very bad boy. I have been infiltrating the Wintel camp ever since I was a little child!!!! And I am just about to buy my FIRST MAC EVER.

So, you ask, what was this PC person thinking, suffering in a prison full of incessant most terrible things, guarded strongly by the Microsoft/Gates vision of the computer world? Well, I was deep inside, even myself being a victim of brainwashing, and one of the mass witnesses to underhanded/poor sport/illegal/immoral activities carried on by the meglomaniac William Gates III. I despise Bill as a worthless experiment in cynical, bitter archetypal adversary to our hero and fearless leader Mr. Jobs. (Ok, so I'm overdoing that reverance bit, but better that I admire a person's vision and company and revolution too deeply, than worship an inferior strategic/technical/implementation such as MS & Win.

Apple should not and will not give ten years of work to the Wintel world. Contamination of its purest ideals would be the first damage to occur, regardless of stock-price reflections of the consumer and IT markets' response.

Apple believes in the whole experience, not just the harware either. They have consistently defined their RESPONSIBILITY to care for their family members of users by their altruistic committment to quality, design, service and industrial/engineering process as an inseperable package of elements. There is no sell-out. EVER. Apple will go out of the market before they will concede to rotting their strong core with sub-par components in any form.

Does anyone have any problem with Apple sticking it to Microsoft over the long term? Steve Jobs thinks in decades, each one has 3 evolution steps, and at least one revolution. Jobs will stay on the path. It's in the planet's best interest.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Microsoft has the CURRENT market share. Just wait and see. Oh yeah, and Apple can live with not being the biggest. Bill Gates himself aknowledged to Steve that "being the best doesn't matter", and gaining market share and power was the path of his life. You be the judge on a personal and idealogical basis. IMHO a visionary is judged on these things, not on market lock-down.

So if you're afraid of Anti-Mac sentiment, don't forget every coin has two sides. We know which side we're on, and we don't have to prove anything beyond the statements of our values and appreciation of design. Welcome Mac haters, you won't find much here at a level that you can or are willing to appreciate.

 

[IndyGopher]

Both Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller have said, in the last week, that Apple's biggest strength is that they "make the whole widget" software, OS, and hardware. I don't see that changing. Whether or not it would be cool, or profitable, or even possible, is kind of moot. Steve Jobs, right here, right now, IS Apple. And Steve Jobs doesn't want to have OS X on anything but Apple hardware. (Personally, I agree with him)