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Cringely: OS X on Intel
sti writes: "Cringely's column this week argues that Apple should port OS X to the Intel platform. He makes an interesting case for it. I would definitely favour this. I've always had this warm spot in my heart for Apple but rarely had the money to pay for their overpriced hardware."
OS X on Intel just wouldn't have the same experience. When you buy an Apple machine you know that the OS is well tuned to run on that hardware. You don't have to worry about an odd mix of hardware or bios problems that are responsible for a number of woes on x86.
I think the only way for OS X to be viable on x86 is with different pricing. Say something like $50 for no support, but $150 with support. That way way nerds like us can play around with a leet OS cheaply, while those who need support would make up for lost hardware profits.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
First of all, I'm so tired of the "Overpriced Hardware" statement, but that's a different post. As for porting OS X to intel. let me explain this one more time:
The hardware is half the magic!!
The reason OS X and all the Mac OS's before it work so well, is that there is a finite, documented set of hardware that it has to work with. Unlike Linux and Windows OS developers, Mac OS developers don't have to worry about every pre 1990 ISA soundblaster compatable card, periphial, and motherboard.
Yes, OS X is great, so go support the company who put it together, by buying one of thier computers. You won't be disapointed.
Any port like that would be a major one.
They are going to have to support a vast number of devices and hardware that just don't happen on the mac.
Plus the fun of trying to provide a dual boot situation - given the average user as well as the tendancy for MS installers to trounce over anything in their way. Just doing a non destructive repartitioning would be interesting.
And as for reading the filesystem that are already there (people will want their data, right?) - well at the least it would compromise security (The new OS would probably not respect account privledges as you would be root) and at the worst would stand a real chance of corrupting the existing system.
Overall, as a clean install, it might be a goer (I'd be interested), but how many people are in that market?
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
Cringley himself answers his own stupid question... Who would buy such a beast? Mac users buy Mac hardware, so why bother? That's exactly right Cringley, so the product would be a waste of time. Either the Mac users would save some pennies on Intel hardware and Apple loses, or they wouldn't
and it would be a waste of time. Most users are simply not going to bother loading another OS with Windows, that's why BeOS failed. Linux is making some headway because (a) it's free as in beer and (b) it's free as in liberty. We don't need another stinkin proprietry OS, one is enough and users know it.
No, the biggest problem will be getting all of the application manufacturers to release two versions of the software. And before everyone talks about the 68K->PowerPC as a refutal, don't forget that that was only transitional. Try and find 68K binaries now. You get lucky somtimes, but not normally.
Now, the problem is simple. If you release on two platforms, you have to support two platforms. That is, two compilers, and their associated bugs. That is, two different endian systems. That is twice the headache in any project managers book.
Unforuntaely, this (Macintosh being overpriced) is not FUD. And I'm a Mac user.
The reason Mac hardware is considered overpriced is because the only thing we can compare them to is the prebuilt kits from Compaq, HP, etc..
There's no DIY aspect to Macs. It's like buying a dishwasher. Which is exactly what Jobs wants in the first place.
But, when you compare all of the Macintosh industry, to all of the x86 industry, the Macs do fall behind in the price department.
This is a visceral implementation of the Cheap, Easy, and Fast problem. Apple chose Fast and Easy. And implemented that well.
Rather than nay-saying anyone who has anything against the pricing of Macs as FUD-broadcasters, I think it is more important to point out how FSCKING SIMPLE AND COOL MacOS is compared to just about anything else in the non-free OS market.
Cringely points out possible benefits to Apple if they enter the OS market on Intel (and has several good points). But what about the certain negatives? Apple now is a mild threat to MS's power. But if they 'infringed' on turf that was MS's, they would certainly be targeted by the giant. Is it really in Apple's best interests to rouse that big of bully? I don't think so.
Cringely mentions Netscape in his article (how by competition, MS made IE better). Look what happened in that case. Would Apple want to risk the same fate? To sacrifice themselves so that Windoz might be a little nicer to use.
Come on.
The thrust of Cringely's argument, which he devotes most of his article to, is this: Apple should port OS X to Intel because "it is exactly the competitor Microsoft needs." But what really matters to Apple is: Will porting OS X to Intel make Apple more or less profitable?
Cringely resolves this complex matter in the space of a paragraph length assertion "The upside for Apple is enormous. Suddenly, their software budget is leveraged across a much larger number of units, making the company more profitable and able to spend even more on making the software better."
Really, Cringely? I think we need more than a handwaving assertion to back this up. e.g. What effect will porting OS X to Intel have on Apple Hardware sales? What will MS's response will be - will it withdraw its Office and IE products for OS X? etc.
Love it or loathe it, Mac Hardware has consistently been the most interesting consumer products in computing. To wit:
Last time Apple licensed their OS and made beige boxes like everyone else they almost went out of business.
As far as anyone complaining that Apple hardware is too expensive, go on eBay and buy any slot-loading iMac, max out it's ram, and install OS X. It runs OS X great, and you can get these darn things for, oh about $300 dollars. If they're anything like my Macs, they will last 6 years without a blip.
My father is a blogger.
It's simple. Let's say apple release OSX on intel. Forget their hardware sales, forget support problems. This would be the future:
1) Office is no longer available on any apple lines, neither is Explorer.
2) Office XP++ doesn't write in any format office X can read.
3) Office was never available for OSX on intel.
4) Microsoft tells Dell, HP, etc that if they want to offer OSX then windows wil cost $$$$ more per copy.
which leaves apple going steadily bankrupt, and the masses with no options if they want user-friendly but don't want Bill....
I'd love it, I'd be first in line to buy it, but it ain't gonna happen
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Where is Cringley getting useful applications for OSx86? One of the things that has kept the mac platform alive is very stable & mature ports of MS Office. MS will *not* port office to a direct windows competitor.
Sure, it's BSD, so OSS apps can be compiled for it, but people don't want abiword or kword, they want MS Word. There's no way apple is going to bundle pre-compiled OSS software, and even if they did, it's not what people are looking for. If anything, without apps, this would be a niche desktop OS.
Unless Cringley expects a perfect win32 emulator to appear, or perhaps he supports a classic mode for windows [this is feasible, grab the netraverse guys and port win4lin to bsd in a rootless mode], this won't work.
As you may remember, when Darwin was first released, many people wanted it to run on Intel, and this ended up being a massive job that still isn't finished. It wasn't that anything had been removed; it's that it simply hadn't been maintained at all since the old Mach 2.5 version, so the foundation, while there, was simply horrendously out of date. Had Apple continued Intel ports, and especially if they had done an Alpha port, it seems as though that code would have been included as well. Recently, in fact, as Darwin's been gotten to limp along on a few varieties of Intel motherboards (and "limp" is definitely the right word here), Apple's been helping a bit with the Intel port, but, again, they're having as much trouble as anyone. No "Here's a secret250,000-line patch to make it work." Just problem solving line by line, conflict by conflict. Given all that, I've always regarded the "OS X is secretely running on Intel" rumor as just that. A rumor.
Unless you've got evidence otherwise, then another argument against OS X on Intel is simply that, despite the rumors, it doesn't exist.
That way dual-booting might actually be a nice thing. On one side you have linux, on the other you have OSX, a beautiful and powerfull OS, not some Microsoft piece of crap. Plus we get nice hardware. Altivec anyone?
Pedro Côrte-Real.
"Uh?" indeed. He was talking about the OS developers. On the PC they have to worry about things like pre 1990 ISA (not quite) soundblaster compatible cards.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
As much as I like OSX and would enjoy using it on Intel base comodity hardware, I can see why Apple hasn't ported it and should not do so.
Apple is making a proffit on it's hardware and as such there is no value to the company to alter it's business model in such a drastic way until such time as they start losing money in their hardware business.
I say this because offering a port of their OS to comodity hardware would completely descimate their hardware business to to offer such a port would nessecerily include removing hardware from their business model completely. Companies line NeXT and Be, had in the past both abandoned their hardware businesses in favor of software as a last corporate gasp - a struggle to remain viable, so if Apple were to take this path, it would be viewed in the context of the past, as if the company were struggling, which for the moment they really are not.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
It always amazes me how forgetful geeks are of their geek "history". Even events that happened scarcely a decade ago fade into the background, much less thirty or more years ago.
It's time for a short lesson in Ancient Apple History, kiddies.
It turns out Apple had seriously considered porting the MacOS to Intel hardware in a joint venture with Novell beginning in 1992, as part of the secret, so-called "Star Trek" project (although Intel's Andy Grove knew of and supported it.) It's all covered in detail in Jim Carleton's book "Apple" (yes, sometimes you have to actually read real books, people!), on pg. 166-180, and elsewhere.
The goal was to put the Mac's "finder," which provides the distinctive look and fell of the Macintosh on the screen, onto an Intel-based computer...(Gifford) Calenda designated a former System 7 manager, Chris DeRossi, to head up Apple's side of the project. In a meeting with their colleagues from Novell, someone suggested the endeavor be called "Star Trek". "The idea beaing 'Boldly go where no Macintosh has gone before,' Rolander recalls.
Note that this is all well before the release of Windows 95. One can only wonder what the outcome of a full-out battle of the Mac OS with Windows 95 on Intel boxes would have been, because the project was killed in 1993, shortly after a working prototype was developed. The ostensible reason given by Carleton was that the cost of development was too high : Apple had finite resources, and didn't commit a large enough software budget to handle both the release of MacOS for Power PC hardware and Intel simultaneously.
Carleton goes on to criticize Apple for its short-mindedness in squandering a prime chance to compete for market share. However, the larger debate within Apple has always been whether to pursue the "high-right" strategy of selling small numbers of highly profitable boxes and hardware, or the "low-left" strategy of selling larger numbers of low profit boxes and hardware. The same debate occurred when Apple licensed its hardware in the late 1990s. The discussion ultimately comes down to this basic point.
While I won't go into the merits of both sides of the argument (Carleton does in some detail), I will note that people don't run computers for the operating system : they run it for the applications. For the largest fraction of consumers, the single largest software application is Microsoft's Office. Microsoft now develops and sells Office for MacOS because it is a nice niche market, and doesn't directly compete with it's bread-and-butter Wintel market.
However, would Microsoft develop Office for an Intel-based MacOS directly in competition with Windows? I would bet not. Think about what that means for an Intel-based MacOS.
Best,
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
As for cost, the price of a high end Mac doesn't seem so unreasonable compared to similarly configured high end dual Xeon (and even Athlon MP) workstations. It may even come out favorably for Apple. The Apple entry level isn't so high, either. The cost argument has just been the most popular anti-Apple FUD lately.
As for ease of use, I'm still not buying the idea that Macs are easier to use. There are ancient studies and a lot of unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence, but not much proof of anything. I think it's pretty much a wash, and probably a dead issue.
As for speed, the G4 leaves me unimpressed. Altivec optimized binaries _do_ scream, but for >95% of the code you run, they don't seem any faster (MHz for MHz) than Intel's Pentium 2/3 generation. Binaries optimized for the P4's extended instructions, and account for the branch predictor that is woefully inadequate for its deep pipeline are also very fast, but in the PC world, this is considered a Bad Thing(R).
Of course, that brings me to one of the more interesting concepts: there is a perverse relationship between the Macintosh and PC worlds. Hardware/software/design deemed good by one camp is considered bad for the other. All-in-one systems have never been popular PC designs, and so on.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
(Apologies: This is actually a crosspost of something I wrote on Macslash. I didn't feel like rewriting it, since I'm already late for this discussion -- curses for sleeping in on Sunday morning!)
I can't believe Cringely's bought into this argument now. I expected better from him.
The whole Mac-on-x86 argument has many followers, with multiple -- and frequently contradictory -- goals. Cringely's is to get Microsoft a competitor on their home turf, one with the human-interface knowhow that Linux and other *nix versions don't have. He's a little better at strategizing than most, offering the idea of a strategic alliance with one of the surviving OEMs as a bulwark, but ultimately what he's suggesting is an altruistic gesture from Apple that offers little chance for success and huge odds for catastrophic failure.
Imagine if Steve Jobs were to announce tomorrow morning that OS X for PCs, developed in secret for months, will be available immediately at your nearby Apple Store or CompUSA. Never mind for now the enormous logistical problems of getting the installer to recognize the nearly infinite combinations of PC hardware out there, or the need to repartition your HD to accomodate an HFS+ partition; we'll say that the installer works like a dream. Here's this brand-new, gorgeous OS ready to go -- and there's not a single damn program that'll run on it.
That's because there's no developers' kit out there in the public. Oh, sure, Apple will port its developers' tools, but programmers need time to use it. (It could be that our mythical Stevenote will include a surprise announcement from Adobe that Photoshop 7 is ready to go for OS X-for-Intel, but considering Adobe's reticence in porting to Carbon, that strains credulity far past breaking. And considering that Adobe already has a perfectly good version of Photoshop running on Intel iron, it'll take quite a bit of arm-twisting from Steve to get them happy about more work.) Existing Cocoa apps will need to be recompiled; I'm not even sure how Carbon apps are supposed to move their legacy 680x0 and PowerPC code crossplatform. And good luck getting your Classic applications to run in emulation (and if you didn't create an HFS+ partition during the setup, you won't even be able to get their resource forks copied over.)
So this brand-new OS, which you paid good money for (and you're dreaming if you think Apple can afford to stick with $130 per license), is sitting on your computer without a thing to do. You have to reboot into Windows to get any work done, which makes you seriously wonder why you bothered in the first place. Meantime, the platform shift -- as Cringely says, Apple can't go into this move halfheartedly; OS X for Intel has to be first-class from the outset -- is having the effect of completely killing sales of Apple's remaining PowerPCs. New users are scared off by certain obsolescence; after all, not even Microsoft could keep two full-blown versions of the same OS running on different platforms at the same time, and Apple's clearly given up on the G4. Old-timers like me have no reason to repurchase the new Mac-compatible PCs and waste our existing investments. Plus, Apple's the only vendor of PowerPC-based desktop computers, and they're now battling Dell and Gateway on price; even assuming that they've been licensed as OEMs, they can undercut Apple's prices even more severely than the clones did.
So Apple, by shifting to x86, would have no legacy software, very few willing developers, an extremely dangerous and powerful competitor on Microsoft's home turf, none of the years of optimization that makes OS X run well on G4s, millions in lost sales for their own hardware, millions more lost dollars in R & D, an alienated fan base, and little hope of evading the implosion of Be and other would-be MS competitors. And they would do this -- why? The goodness of their hearts? Apple really has no reason to budge from PowerPC; the platform's still running, if not neck-and-neck with Intel and AMD, at least fast enough to give Mac users value for their money. Porting would not be Apple's best way of leveraging their comfortable niche market -- it would be a leap of desperation from a company that doesn't need to do it.
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
From my experience, being a Mac geek, it usually isn't because Mac OS is flawed that people can't get any work done, but more of the fact that people try to use it like a windows computer. I work at the tech desk at my college, we have a bunch of blue and white G3s in a "public use" area. They continually crash / freeze, etc. The dells running win2k don't. Why?
Because most of the people running the area have no idea how to maintain a Mac computer lab. They don't realize that there are things called extensions (under OS x) that can cause conflicts. They don't know how to setup the machines so people can't install software, move the contents of the system folder to the desktop. In general they don't know how to maintain the machines. Same problem within a business environment. I worked for an Apple Authorized Service Provider (we did warranties, etc.) and most of the businesses revenue came in from service contracts. As in companies with 200 pcs and 10 macs realized that their MCSE knew jack shit about keeping the Macs running for the graphics department. So they hired us to take care of the machines.
Let me say again: Macs in most "pc only" environment are not examples of macs on a whole. especially since most still aren't running OS X. Most of those places don't have anyone who actually uses a Mac at home running the network. Let alone someone who has taken a course, or read a book, or even some basic websites on managing a mac network.
What you pay more for in a Mac is the complete engineering and design
no, what you pay for is no hardware competition.
Why do you think Jobs killed clones?
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