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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."
http://saveie6.com/
So, Macintosh finally creates a new GUI OS that appeals to not only the general sheep-herd user base but also to the Linux geeks, thus making many people reconsider their usage of PCs and possibly port over to the ever-struggling Mac Hardware, and now they're gonna make it so that it's not exclusive to Mac hardware?
Wouldn't be a smart move unless Apple decided it wanted to move out of the Home Desktop business and simply make their machines for professional use... which they're bordering close to, but this would render all the iFruit campaigns obsolete, and this kind of intrudes of Apple's whole originating philosophy of doing something different than what all the other business-class computer companies (IBM, HP, Xerox, etc.) were doing...
Karma: Non-Heinous
Apple has always been a hardware company. They are more like Sony than Microsoft -- the sleek industrial design is what distinguishes their computers. Jobs tried licensing their OS previously, and much as Cringely says that releasing OS X for Intel wouldn't be like the Mac Clones debacle, it is. Apple revenues would plummet -- they make their money on the hardware side, not the software side.
If anything, I'd rather see Apple release OS X as a GUI that rides on top of Linux, and help the Linux world fight the good fight. New OSes just divide so that others can conquer, and users know this -- that's why new ones like BeOS don't sell.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
It's an option-- go to your preferences page and check the box (under "I, Cringely", maybe 20% of the way into the links). Then you won't have to wait for some karma-whore to get his weekly column submitted to be reminded to check his PBS column.
For what it's worth (to be just a little bit on topic), I've been using Win2K and Linux at home and OS X on a G3 Mac at work. The 10.1 update to OS X along with the Omniweb browser has made that my favorite platform, bar none, to surf the web. For games, it sucks.
It has been fairly stable--I get a hard crash (locked up) about once a month now. The machine is also running Apache, ftpd, and telnetd, and for all intents and purposes I treat it just like my Linux box except that the browser is nicer...
Honestly, I would rather not have OS X on Intel hardware--it is dog slow even on this 400 MHz G3 after all the updates/patches have been applied. What I would like is just a browser as nice as Omniweb.
But OS X isn't tuned to the hardware. It runs dog slow on anything below a g3/500, and you really want to be running it on a g4. There is a tremendous amount of hardware incompatibilities and classic isn't always your best bet for running older apps.
Apple has already ported Mac OS X to Intel. And I don't just mean the Darwin open source foundation. The entire operating system including Cocoa, Carbon, Quartz and Aqua runs and runs well on Intel CPUs. At one point there was also an Alpha port but that was discontinued well before Mac OS X went beta.
Apple won't release a general Intel port of OS X. It makes no sense for them to do so. Apple makes the vast majority of its revenue through hardware sales, somewhere around 90-95%. If they released Mac OS X for Intel their hardware sales would fall dramatically. Because the unit cost of an operating system is much less than the cost of a hardware box (say $100 compared with $2000) Apple's revenues would fall precipitously.
No company can gp to Wall Street and say: I'm going to chop my annual revenues down from $8 billion to $500 million. Can you imagine what would happen to the Apple stock price if they announced this? It simply can't be done.
So why do Apple keep the Intel port of OS X alive? After all it costs real money to keep all that software running cross-platform.
There are two reasons. First as a hedge against Motorola or IBM screwing Apple on the PowerPC processor. In the last few years the clock rate (and other key performance measures) of the PowerPC line has fallen a long way behind Intel. If IBM/Moto can't get competitive again, then Apple wants the option of putting Intel CPUs into Macs. This would not mean you could buy an off-the-shelf Gateway/Dell/whatever and run OS X on it. You can bet Apple would make sure it only ran on a "real" Mac to preserve their hardware revenues.
The second reason they keep the port up is because it helps them produce better code. Having to write code that runs on more than one CPU family is a good engineering discipline. The different architectures stress different parts of the code and you will often see bugs on one platform that are hidden on the other.
So Apple already have OS X on Intel, but don't expect to see it in the marketplace anytime soon.
Sailing over the event horizon
Technical hurdles and business considerations aside, cast your memories back to 1997 when Jobs shocked the world by teaming up with Gates. Remember that $150 million in non-voting Apple stock purchased by Microsoft, and patent cross-licensing deal? Anyone? Here's the Apple Press Release in case you forgot. Apple was in bad shape, and Microsoft was up for monopolistic practices. Jobs agreed to make IE the default browser for the Mac, and Gates agreed to give Office better treatment on the Mac platform.
According to my vivid imagination, Jobs had a word in Gates' ear, saying words to the effect that Gates could crush Apple like a bug if he cared to, but then he'd have no real competitor to point at in defense of monopoly charges. Why not just let Apple have its little niche, whispers Jobs to Gates, and we'll agree not to get cocky and muscle in on your turf? The IE and Office deals merely consummated the marriage, as it were. Jobs is happy because Apple gets to survive, and Gates is happy because he has a harmless competitor that he can act all panikcy about.
This is pure speculation on my part, of course, but if there's much truth in it, you can expect Apple to be totally uninterested in the OSX for PC idea. I'm thinking that both Jobs and Gates would still prefer a no-compete situation.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
One of the greatest things about Apple is their quality control. Something that would be impossible for Apple to do without being able to control what hardware their OS runs on. Not to mention the overhead of writing drivers for all the x86 devices out there. Apple's core business is hardware, not software. Porting OS X to x86 would seriously hurt their bottom line. Another roadblock would be getting all the developers to re-compile their applications so they can run on OS X x86. Do you think Microsoft would be willing to do this with Office/Internet Explorer? Makes you wonder why they decided to port these applications to OS X....
Speaking as a long-time Macintosh software developer, I literally drool at the possibility of selling my apps to an intel-sized audience with a simple recompile. Apple uses gcc, so setting a compile switch to generate the right binary will work without any hassles. BeOS had a similar PowePC to Intel transition, and building either binary couldn't have been easier. Well, okay, you had to install some extra libraries to build, but Apple would sort that out. Oh, and endian issues on the BeOS were rarely a problem (htonl() and its friends work quite nicely).
Trust me. Standard application developers won't be worried about shipping two binaries if it means doubling (tripling, quadrupling?) the market for their products.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Agreed. OS X wouldn't just run on any old system. I'm thinking mainly Athlon & P4's with 256MB+ of RAM.
On an off topic tangent... Does anybody know how much OS X can be optimized? Are there still significant speed improvements to be made?
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
Macs typically cost more than a Windows PC, but only up-front. With Macs, you can employ a pay-once, use forever school of thought. Not the case the other way around.
Anybody who doubts me should consider the costs of:
- Seperate Microsoft CALs for everything under the sun.
- Down-time caused by virii, worms, and other compromise.
- Bandwidth costs associated with said worms. (Anybody still paying a Code Red debt? Anybody go out of business because of it?)
- Down-time due to hardware failure caused by use of cheap/shoddy/no-name components.
- Hour wasted re-installing OS 2-3 times annually (3-5 times annually in an office/heavy use scenario)
- Time wasted installing/finding/troubleshooting device drivers when installing hardware.
I'm not saying there won't ever be a hardware problem or support issue to arise on a Mac, because there will be, but I'm saying there are a number of hidden costs in Windows PCs.
When you factor in those hidden costs, and factor in the lowest bang for your buck prices at Apple in history, Macs become much more attractive for regular business users, not just web-designers, programmers, and graphic artists. Are you telling me that whatever Unix apps your company runs couldn't get ported to OS X or accessed as a web-application?
Data-processing workers or secretarys could even live with sub-$1000 iMac systems. Beef them up with OS X and 512 meg of RAM and you've got more than ample resources to run Office v.X and email, which is about 99% of my mom's job (and since most people know as much about computers as my mom, that's a good measureing stick.)
Who did what now?
1. Supporting MacOS on god-knows-what hardware configs is a nightmare that would cripple it's reputation. When WIN doesn't work, users don't call the box maker, they curse the OS maker. Something about WIN made all of you stop using it - some of that was lack of HW toleration - did you go buy a new box? Nope - you switched OSs.
2. Overpriced hardware is a myth bordering now on The Big Lie - go to Dell, Gateway, Compaq, HP and match any level of the new G4 iMac - then count yer change.
3. Bob, it WOULD cannibalize hardware sales - Apple's largest edge is the OS/box integration, the Mac faithful would still buy the mac boxes, but your average new user would - and does - buy the rattiest box they can find - blind to the reality of the $599 specials. And good luck getting it to run reliably on some box that, as is typical, doesn't even know the names of the cards slapped in it.
Sticking to HW/SW is not so bad - Apple knows that typical system turnover is about three years - would they rather rachet up to making box money or start tomorrow with a herculean effort at supporting all the hardware in the world to make license money? Think you can open a storefront and sell licenses? Or would you rather have a store that can sell someone a solution and make box money?
Anyone know what portion of their business MS makes on licensing the OS alone? Remember, MS makes a lot of software - odds are Apple would not - this number needs to be known before convincing anyone that ramping up the software biz would be their saviour.
I have an iBook2 with OSX because since day one, I open it up, it does everything I ask of it as a plain old person, teacher, writer, webmaster, admin, tourist, scientist, etc. I have yet to crash OSX after 11 months, anything I plug into it fits and works. It is an order of magnitude above any previous HW/SW I've seen or owned. I could run windows on it tomorrow.
But I won't, and not because of religion. because of integration.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Actually, the way he most likely intended that wasn't as namecalling, but as a way to point out that one of the big differences between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple products have personality. There's just something about an Apple computer that makes you care about it a lot more from the moment you get it into your home.
In November, I got an Apple G3 iBook. I love that machine. It does what I want it to, it does it smoothly, and with OSX it does it in a way that looks kinda cool. However, OSX isn't the fastest speed demon out there on a G3 processor, and I definitely need more RAM. But I haven't really regretted my purchase yet.
On the other hand, I recently settled a nightmare of support with Best Buy in returning an IBM laptop. I hated that thing. It was a total waste of my money. In exchange for it, I brought home a Sony VAIO with a Pentium 4 1.6. I can't respect this machine as hard as I try. I've actually had dreams about returning it and getting something else. Not daydreams, full-on-REM-stage dreams. It was a downer when I got up that morning and realized it'd been over two weeks and I couldn't take it back anyhow.
And this is a Sony, probably the closest thing to a "designer" line in the PC market.
Apple machines have a soul, it's there. But it's next to impossible to find a PC with a Microsoft OS that has one. I've even got two 50Mhz Sparc machines that I keep running for no real reason here at home, but the perfectly good 1Ghz Athlon that the Sony supplanted is powered down, dejected. My machine for several years, if you count it from the oldest component. Yet I find it hard to bother messing with it anymore. My iBook on the other hand... Yeah. I like it a lot. Still.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Look at the iBook. Small, light, preforms decent. Try to find a brand name x86 for the same money with similar equiptment. Same for the iMac.
Yes, you can say that you can _build your own_ for less with x86. x86 to Apple is already comparing apples to oranges, so to further try to compare a home built to off the shelf brand name is not a fair comparison.
SO, what's the REAL problem with APPLE?
When you can get an iMac for $799, an iBook for $1199, and then have to pay $550 for MS Office X who wants to buy it? When you can get at least the basic MS Office bundled with almost all x86 brand name hardware for almost nothing!
Don't bother arguing the Open Source office suites to me, I know. That doesn't change the fact that public perception is in the believe that you NEED MS Office to make a computer useful.
So, do I point this out solely to nitpick? No, not solely. I do so because he uses this example to argue that, due to loyalty, Apple would not lose hardware sales to Intel boxes running OS X. He points out the loyalty will keep buyers from jumping ship, be the ship Porsche or Apple, but then in the same paragraph, admits that loyalty has its limits. His analogy is flawed, so it does not make a credible argument.
I'm not split hairs here; the question of lost hardware sales has to be the biggest issue standing in the way of Mac OS X on Intel. If Cringely is going to argue for it, he has to convincingly allay those fears, and he has not done so.
There are other flaws in the cars-to-computers analogy, such as the fact that a large reason Porsche owners (or Corvette owners, or, especially, Viper owners) buy the cars they do is because they are expensive; the high price symbolizes success and exclusivity. But, these, and other arguments, have been made before, so I will not delve into them here. Though it is ironic that despite the fact that this argument has so often been criticized, that Cringely decides to bring it up again, if only to present it will fresh new holes.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
So, Apple can continue to sell their higher-priced blimpo boxes yet run with a more modern and cost effective architecture. By the time the Hammer series is available, there should be enough commercial software running on the OSX API for it to be fat-binary feasable.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
of jumping into the Mac vs. PC war...
I consider myself to be somewhat computer literate. I've been building and servicing PCs for 6 years, and seen what wintel has to offer. I've also worked as a systems administrator (*NIX systems).
I bought my first mac about 6 months ago. I chose mac vs. pc due to the higher quality hardware, the tighter integration of the OS, and the feature set (try to find a good small, leight-weight wintel laptop with internal DVD and 802.11b that doesn't burn the batteries in 1.5 hours). I'm also a big fan of OS X. I'm sold on the integration between UNIX and a good GUI. Yes, there are a bugs and annoyances, but overall, I'm happier with my mac than I have ever been with a PC. My main argument is this: You get what you pay for. I chose to pay more for my mac because I expect more from a computer system than wintel can provide.
Sure, you do see a nice PC once in a while, but for the most part, they are klunky, thrown-together (read: no top-level design), and let's not forget to factor in the chineese discount (read: cheap quality) hardware. (No offense to chineese hardware manufacturers! Please, keep making $7 10/100 NICs!) A wintel box will provide a big bang for your buck, but unless you're a power user, you'll never see the difference--or care for that matter.
Why choose the bare minimum in satisfaction? Isn't it better to be pleased/happy with a purchace, rather than just satisfied?
That's my $0.02 anyway.
Actually this was EXTREMELY effective, IMNSHO. Whether you worked in a Mac shop or a Windoze shop you could see familiar things about the computers the geeks worked with. There were even Linux-like aspects of that weird hybrid "operating system" the computers used.
Add to it the anachronistic software boxes on the shelves. I laughed my ass off when I first saw it and everyone looked at me funny because they couldn't see how humorous it was to see DBase II and Lotus 123 and Wordstar 3.3 on the shelves next to more-or-less modern computers on the desks.
Of course it could have all been accidental. The set decorator could have gone through thrift stores in Austin, TX looking for cheap software and finding those old classics. The guys who made the fake OS for display probably were working with Macs (Hollywood LOVES its Macs) and Mike Judge was probably telling them to "make the OS look like Windows." But the result, intentional or unintentional it might be, was true geek humor.
It is my assertion that the co-stars of Office Space were the computers themselves. One more reason that movie is an underrated masterpiece.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
*cough*windowsxp*cough*
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
1. Release Windows for Machintosh: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
2. Bundle IE with the OS, release Office for MacWindows: Microsoft Standard Operating Procedure
3. Discontinue support for IE and Office for OS-X: claim that the effort in porting Windows has consumed resources previously used for Mac apps. Promise updates 'soon'
4. Release products that directly compete with iTunes, iDVD, iPhoto, iEtc... : replay the counter-Netscape strategy
5. Watch Apple dry up and turn to dust
Cringley uses Borland and Netscape to make his point. The more obvious conclusion is that "he who competes with Microsoft, dies." I don't think Apple users and shareholders would like that, would they?
I think what the original poster was referring to with the DIY comment is that you can't build your own Mac from scratch. Sure, i can stick a G3 or G4 in my PowerTower Pro, or pop a Radeon in a PCI slot, but that only goes so far - the CPU is limited by my bus speed (50mhz, 60 if i clock), and the Radeon is old tech, especially on the PCI bus.
The point is that you can't go out and buy Mobo X, CPU Y, and Vid Card Z then stick them all in a case of your choice and build a modern system running the Mac OS. Sure, bottom of the barrel boxes like yours and mine work, but they aren't nearly as fast as a $3000 G4.
What you and I have done is upgraded old Machines - not built one from the ground up. I hate to say it, but no matter how you look at it, there is no way you can make a top of the line Mac from a stack of components of your choosing - you're stuck with what Apple says you can have, which are legacy pieces until you buy a brand new G4, which pretty much defeats the purpose of building one yourself.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway