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If Mac OS X Came to x86, Would You Switch?
A not-so anonymous Anonymous Coward would like to put this query before you: "I'm not a fan of Windows, and never have been, but I am a fan of the x86 architecture. I really like Linux, but there are still a few issues that are keeping me from switching completely. I really like Mac OS X but I don't want to drop $2000 on a computer that is only as fast as an x86 computer at half the price. Darwin, Mac OS X's unix-ish core, has been ported to x86 and Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn OS seems to be disliked by everyone but Microsoft. If Apple released Mac OS X to compete with Longhorn, would you switch?"
Furthermore, I regret to say that I don't see much prospect of any of the Linux GUI efforts approaching the ease of use and elegance of OS X any time soon - partially due to a lack of imagination, and partially due to being over-wedded to X which is evolving way too slowly and is over-wedded to a basic design that is simply outdated.
For the past several years I have been buying nothing but Apple products for myself, coworkers and family members. I have been willing to pay a higher price for better (more innovative) physical design, less cabling, and an innovative OS. The downside has been limited hardware choices that are generally a few steps behind the curve of x86 machines. That being said, I would seriously consider 'switching' to OS X on a x86 machine if it was produced and supported by Apple and possibly the hardware vendors. At the same time, however, I really like the ever evolving designs that come from Apple. When was that last compelling design change of the ubiquitous x86 desktop or laptop (maybe from Alienware)? So for me to do a pseudo-switch, I would probably also need to see some changes from the hardware vendors (how many cables run across the desk of a typical workstation?). To sum it all up, I think it would be a great thing for Apple to release OS X to the masses. It would certainly send Balmer on another sweaty spin!
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It never ceases to amaze me how so many people who use their computers for just basic, simple tasks like office functions act like they have this incredible need for powerful hardware. I bought a Compaq Presario with a Sempron 2800, 256MB DDR Ram and a 80GB hdd for only $445 including S&H, and with SuSE 9.1 it does everything I need. It's not a game machine, so uhhh why exactly when it's just going to run Java and C++ programs for class, would I need the latest Athlon64 or Pentium4?
The reason for owning a Mac has never been about power, but utility. Every convert to MacOS X from Windows that I know switched because Macs are actually much more useful in many areas than Windows PCs. The hardest pill for many of them to swallow is that the "Apple way" really is significantly easier and more productive than the "Microsoft way."
The average computer user who could afford one, would actually be much better off with an iMac or iBook than a typical off the shelf PC. It gets the job done, and done well and it is made much better than the usual PC.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Alright! Round two!
Finding software for OS X/x86 will be just as hard, if not HARDER than it is for PPC. I don't own a Mac, actually, I use x86 hardware at home, but admin about 200 Macs at work. We don't have trouble finding software for them at all. There's good software in almost every category for OS X, and I've found that Apple's free development tools and NeXT-derived libraries lead even shareware apps to be of great quality and usability.
I know that EFI BIOS is coming, but it's still not here. I've been enjoying a 32-bit BIOS with a GUI bootloader, network booting, single-image support, and no hassles since the Blue and White G3 came out in 1999.
Most Mac setups have a LOT simpler cabling than their PC counterparts. I set these things up for a living. Macs typically install in about half the time from 'boxed' to 'bootup'. I've got a G4 on my desk at work, and an ADC monitor. My monitor gets signal, power, and USB on ONE cable to the CPU. The powered speakers get power and signal on one Y-cable, as opposed to a stereo cable, a left-to-right cable, and a power cable on the PCs. I've got ONE cable coming from the back of my screen to my keyboard, which has a built-in hub for the mouse and my flash-reader. Macs have a lot less cables when properly purchased and set up.
As for 'screwed when the monitor gives out', there are NO machines that Apple ships without external video. I just bought an iBook for my sister and she hooked it up to her monitor witht he included VGA adapter. My desktop G4 at work has both ADC and DVI out. Even the iMacs have VGA-out.
Where's the HUGE price difference? I don't buy 'low end' hardware, be it Mac or PC. Once you get to the 'good stuff' with name-brand components, quality hard drives and memory, and all the fixin's the price difference on both sides is close to zero. Apple's iBooks actually beat Dell laptops hands-down on price and value. The $300 difference on desktops like the iMac is easily accounted for in power savings (which also carry to lower AC bills), high-quality LCD screens, and time to setup and maintain. Once again, I sound like a fanboy, but I'm out there doing price/performance comparisons for my work all day.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Who *REALLY* is a fan of x86? BIOS should have died a long time ago. x86 is a hideous architecture with an ISA that makes all assembler code look like vomit etc. I think the only thing people like about x86 is the cost. I think the more important question is can we ever replace x86 with another architecture (I like SPARC and with Intel's R&D I'm sure we could get over any problems) but keep it as open and mix-and-match as x86 is now? Write a decent emulator and legacy code is taken care of. I'm sure OSS and it's upward trend would minimize the transition costs. But really when can we get rid of this turd?!?
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Of course, if it was free, or could be easily pirated, and it worked as well on my computer as Linux currently does, I would switch. But thats not accurate.
First of all, if it ever came to be, it would have to be hideously expensive. Don't think about the $100 cost of OS X upgrades now. Those are for people who have already paid their dues to Apple by buying a Mac. If it was any good, an x86 Mac OS port would wipe out a fair share of Apple's current hardware sales. Even if they could, say, double their current OS market share by running on cheaper commodity hardware, they would still need to make half the profit on each new, non-upgrade copy of x86 Mac OS that they currently make on the average new Macintosh sold. I would be very surprised if they could make this up with a retail price under $400. I definitely wouldn't pay $400 or more for it, as slick as it is, and compared to free Linux and "free" preloaded Windows I doubt many other current PC users would, and it would never be a market success for Apple if only existing Mac users bought it.
And thats all supposing that the product is every bit as good as the current version of Mac OS for Apple hardware. That means that they would have to support seamlessly every possible combination of PC components that could show up on a computer made in the last 3 or 4 years. Darwin x86 certainly can't do that now, and even if they could port over every current FreeBSD driver, plus support every video chipset they support on Macintoshes now, it would be far from universal, although it would be good enough for me. Microsoft spends a lot of money on testing and driver development to ensure Windows works on every wacky system they claim it will run on, and that is even given that most of the device drivers are written by vendors.
Given these constraints, I don't think Apple can bring a viable x86 Mac OS port to market at a price low enough to be successful, so no matter how cool you think it would be to have OS X on your computer, it isn't going to happen.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
You know, I've been laptop shopping twice in the last year, once for me and once for my SO. I'm a serious geek -- I spend 90% of my time in a terminal -- and make my living with my hardware, so I spent a lot of time looking. My SO isn't a geek at all, and I'm her computer slave, so whatever she got had to be easy for me to support.
I'd never used a Mac before and was originally planning to get Thinkpad and run Debian on it. Both times, hands down, we got Macs. I have a 15" Powerbook and she has a 14" iBook. Both times I spent days on every major manufacturer's web sites, comparing every model I could find.
What I found was that there is no laptop, period, that matches anything Apple makes feature-for-feature at a comparable price point. Nothing even comes close. The only way to get the features I wanted in a Thinkpad was to pay $3,500 and gain an extra 2 pounds of travel weight. The only sub-optimal feature of the Powerbook is battery life -- after a year of constant use I get about 2 hours.
This comparison was done OS-agnostic, since I expected to run Debian on the Powerbook, too. After a week, though, I swore I'd never go back. OSX is amazing. It's the first time in 15 years of professional computer use that I haven't had to *think* about the operating system.
In short, Macs rule. if you don't believe me, do the research yourself. Anyone trotting out the "Macs are too expensive and slow" line is living in the past.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
As a techie, I always get bombarded with "Where can I get a good computer?" questions, and I just tell people either at Best Buy for 500 bucks or a Mac.
A few weeks ago someone answered that they don't like Macs because "they like to have control that Windows gives them".
So, yesterday that person needs help burning pictures off the digital camera to 3 CDs. It took us fourty (40!) minutes to burn 600 megs of data on a well equipped Windows XP machine (3.06GHz P4 HT, 512 MB RAM). This is why:
I drag the first set of files onto the CD, they burn OK (albeit a bit slow).
I drag the second set of files and get an "incorrect function" error. I'm thinking WTF?
I use a new CD and some drag-to-disc program comes up and burns the pictures much faster than the first CD did.
I try to burn the final CD, but get the incorrect function error again. It took me 20 minutes of CD swapping, ctrl-alt-deleteing, and cussing to figure out that I had to right click on the burner icon and enable CD burning for it.
Well, duh, one might say, of course you have to have the CD burning enabled. You might think so, but you'd better not wonder why the first two CDs burned, but the last one required enabling.
What I'm trying to say is that in the time it took me to burn 600 megs of data on a very well stocked Windows XP PC, I could have had the very same pictures sorted into albums, posted on my website (which runs on the same machine), and burned on a cd on a 1.4GHz G4.
Apple way might be more expensive at first, but it doesn't require you to randomly click on things to make them work. (Provided that the PC has a slew of 3rd party applications to keep it working in the first place.)
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Nevermind that you're comparing an iMac to a corporate-class workstation. If you'd configured a Dimension instead of a Precision, you'd probably not have had anything to post about, sorry to say. I just got done refuting someone else's claims that "Apples aren't any more expensive than similarly equipped PCs" on The Inquirer. Oddly enough, they did the same thing you did: went straight to Dell, picked a corporate class machine. Sadly, the other people made some gross misjudgements to jack up the PC price even more, by configuring the Dell with twice the RAM, more addons, etc... But still, when you get down to it, you're comparing Apples and oranges. Back on topic, even if Apple did release OSX on x86 architecture, it'd likely run poorly (at least as compared to OSX on a Mac). It's just not in their best interests to release a "perfect" version of OSX on x86 architecture, simply because I doubt Apple makes its money selling software. If there's no compelling reason for people to buy the machines (style only goes so far, OS and other software tow the load), there's very little profit potential for Apple in releasing OSX on PC hardware.