Slashdot Mirror
Apple to Lock OSXi to Apple Hardware
spac writes "It seems that Apple has chosen to use the Trusted Platform Module chip to ensure that Mac OS X can only run on Apple Hardware. The report from vnunet states that the chips contain a unique identifier, which can be used to determine the manufacturer of a PC as well as facilities for data encryption. "
The first sentence in the linked article says "Apple COULD use the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip to ensure that only Mac computers can run its OS X operating system, according to a news analysis from Gartner." emphasis mine.
While I do not doubt this will in fact be the case, I would appreciate more accurate reporting on the part of the Slashdot editors to ensure that submitters are not spreading misinformation. In fact, if you click on the Gartner new analysis linked in the vnunet article, you will find no mention of the "security chip" being quoted by this article so we have nested lousy reporting. Yeah, yeah, I must be new here. Ha ha
Seriously though, this is a reasonable move for Apple to ensure that the look, feel and reliability of the MacOS does not become corrupted for some users who may want to install OS X on "lower quality hardware". Apple prides itself on a quality user experience that approaches a luxury product. Everything from the appearance of the fonts to the way consumers interact with the interface needs to remain consistently "high quality" and I am sure Apple will make efforts to preserve this experience.
As well as providing for an OS "lock" on hardware, the implementation of such chips will also allow for stronger security as well as enabling one of the features that Hollywood has been demanding before Internet distribution of movies will be allowed by the studios.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Apple could use the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip to ensure that only Mac computers can run its OS X operating system, according to a news analysis from Gartner.
*snip*
A spokeswoman for the TPG confirmed to vnunet.com that there is nothing preventing Apple from implementing the module
it doesn't sound like apple's 'chosen' anything at all yet...?
... how is apple going to profit from piracy?
Tell me you didn't read this, and then the posted article. You did post both, Taco, cause you are the editor of both....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
We'll have it cracked in no time
...they expect this to be cracked in how many hours?
This really isn't all that surprising. Apple wants to have a stranglehold on their OS. If they don't maintain that stranglehold, then issues with non-Apple hardware will begin to crop up. When those issues crop up, they'll make headlines. Those headlines will then damage Apple's reputation. Remember, Apple is a complete solution provider, not just a software provider.
That being said, I keep kicking around in my head the concept of Apple allowing other PC manufacturers to build OS X compatible machines. While Apple attempts to stand for quality, it might be feasible for them to license their software to others. That way there could be the "cheap PC" version of OS X, and Apple would still make money with little damage to their rep. I can't quite decide whether it's a *good* idea, though. Once they start licensing to other manufacturers, they lose a modicum of control over their quality control.
Microsoft gets away with it because the majority of their users are either stupid or don't care. Apple, OTOH, is still in a vulnerable position. Their growth has been enormous, but one wrong move on their part could bring the whole stack of cards tumbling down.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The article clealy states that apple COULD use this chip to prevent grey-boxes from running osx.
The only statement that apple has made was that they wont allow that, with no comments on how they are doing it
I for one welcome our new hardware overlords!
Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
i'm sure apple will use something, but nobody knows what they're going to use. apple said that it was not ready to release a specification in the article.
best college pickem site ever: pickem.terrbear.org
Apple, might be changing their system design , but they are CERTAINLY not changing their business model.
Were there any people out there with a clue who DIDNT think this would happen ?
Expect software workarounds (Darwin is OS afterall) or "Mod Chips" about 1 week after release.
Wait until they get slapped with a lawsuit for restraint of trade in the EU for deliberately destroying interoperability with other systems
Good luck!
Honestly though, if the net outcome is that Macs get faster processors, and more often, that could be a good thing.
Guess that kills the other topic
Of all the stupid moves. Trusted Computing? Just wait untill that makes the rounds. Wonder how many buyers want to buy a trusted computer? My guess is not many. Unless they work for the RIAA and MPAA.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
If this happens (note: the article says "apple COULD use...") it'll be unfortunate... Apple could be losing out on a significant market of people who are sick of windows and are curious in trying something new. ...of course there's always linux for that situation, but the idea of "linux" might scare some people.
(Of course, there's always the very real possibility that some mod will be available to disable this feature...) :)
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
This will hold how many days?
According to TFA...
In other words, the whole thing is based around two facts we already knew: Apple wants to restrict OSX to Apple machines, and there is a chip on the motherboards that can be used for this.
Uh, people, there's a chip in a G5 that can do the same. The server version of OSX is reputed to use it, but I've installed the same OSX DVD on more than one Apple box before...
So, the entire article can be summed up as 'Apple might use DRM to secure their OS'. Whoopy-doo.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
The article states that Apple COULD do this, not that they will definitely do this. This is a RUMOR. Is it too much to ask that the editors confirm that the summary is consistent with the article next time? We'll have to start checking even the summary for goatse links now.
Apple has done it to themselves though. They have for so long kept their Operating System away from people who want it that soon people will do everything they can to get it. If they would have even released a version that has less then the Mac OS X that runs on their own hardware it could have on some level fed the masses enough to calm them down, albeit, for only a time, but they would still have profited.
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Y
Or, witht he way things are today, it'll be unlocked and all over the place a week before the "golden masters" are pressed. Only time will tell, but ther is NO way that software can be successfully locked down 100%. Anyone betting on that as a business strategy is playing russian roulette with a loaded gun.
The chip prevents MacOS on generic Wintel, but what about the vice versa scenario, in which people install cheapo WinXP on an elegant PowerMac Dothan =)
That said, I seriously doubt that software manufacturers are going to have difficulty recompiling and tweaking their apps. The software is likely to be ready long before the hardware ships.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: You shall not question the great and powerful Slashdot Groupthink!
* Use Open Firmware
* Lock it to their custom Northbridge as they usually do
Yeah, I like how speculation turns into fact here on Slashdot...
"Apple could use the Trusted Platform..."
...for the amount of days it will take crackers to get this running on other non-Apple hardware. Personally, my bet is that they'll have this licked in less than a month.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
You know, review of all the available material and a careful consideration of it before publishing.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
I'd give about 15 minutes.
How difficult would it be to crack this "feature" out of MacOS X?
Lets see... I bet it will only take a week.
I think this will be the first Apple I won't buy. I can understand locking the OS from running on generic, but once you throw a chip in there that can do more than just lock out the OS, that scares me.
(Assuming this is true of course.)
Apple can do all it can to lock down the software, but someone will figure out how to break the security. It may be challenging, but I'd be willing to bet that someone will either rewrite the software so that it runs using the necessary parts of Darwin, or they'll find a way to build a duplicate piece of hardware which fakes the id codes.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
With everything going on with mod chips for playstation and PS2, couldn't something similar be made to mod any PC into looking like it were apple hardware? I don't know much about hardware and what not so I'm just throwing the question out there. It really seems like something could/would be done to get OS X running on generic PC's.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
While I do not doubt this will in fact be the case, I would appreciate more accurate reporting on the part of the Slashdot editors to ensure that submitters are not spreading misinformation.
I'm sorry you must be new here....
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Good news for hackers, this is. They always like a challenge, and they will succeed. Not that it will hurt Apple a lot, because it won't mean it will become normal or very easy to install OSX on any Cheapo(tm) system. Without support from apple it will never really be a smooth instllation and user experience. I don't blame Apple for keeping it exclusive, your labour of love on a cheap whore (=Dell)
Although I have no doubt that Apple may use this technology, locking a customer in doesn't seem like the Apple thing to do. Much of the sweetest software on Macs is mirrored in some form on an x86, even Final Cut Pro has some kind of a Windows version. I would think that Apple would offer OS X for sale to everyone, even for use on generic x86 boxes, but would only offer decent support on their machines. The reason that Apple would still win out even in the hardware realm is because Apple hardware provides a vastly superior user experience than any PC manufacturer has attained.
when I find myself you'll be the first to know.
All three seem reasonable to me. The combination would definatly stop the casual users (until someone figured how to simulate it all in a VMWare type environment, which I would think would take awhile).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Is anyone else absolutely annoyed with the fact that absolutely sensationalized stories about OSX on Wintel keep popping up on Slashdot?
Although I still consider slashdot to be a reputable news site, this assertion is rapidly losing ground with me.
..if after all is set and done, Apple would have NO protection against running OSX86 on a white box?
Steve must understand that early adopter geek "pirates" are the best way to start a viral spread.
Even whith limited x86 hardware compatability (which will be much worse than even Linux), the fact that said geek pirate can install it and show to his friends could mean eventual end of MS as we know it.
In other news, Gartner reports that people use cars for travelling...
Seriously, who still pays for these GArtner 'Analysts'? It would be interesting to see how much of their 'Analysis' has come true historically.
Also, on other subject, I want to know who qualifies people as 'Specialist' when they appear on TV. You know, the 'Terrorism Specialist' & 'Homeland Securiy Analyst' on Faux News & MSCrapNBC
Expect H2O to do the same as they did with steinburg: Spend hundreds of hours cracking the protection, then use the cracked software to make a thank you letter, thanking the company for making such great protection, and for providing the challenge.
Will Apple on Intel have big honking fans?
Yuck.
Step 1: Release OS X 10.6 for Intel as a free download for all intel PCs.
Step 2: Announce that all further OS X releases will be protected and only run on Apple hardware.
Step 3: Profit
Feasible? The first hit is always free, right? If OS X is a good OS, what better way to let the majority of Windows PC users give it a go and see what they are missing.
-swc
TPM isn't really necessary to lock OSX, when Apple are likely to continue making their own custom motherboards. I expect Apple's hardware to be sufficiently different to cause near insurmopuntable compatibility problems anyway. Tiger can't even run on my Beige G3, let alone a machine built by qa 3rd party!
It's one thing to port OSX to a specific intel box, it's a completely different task to port it to *every* intel box.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Someone has managed to crack Apple's DRM scheme for their low level OS functionality, there is a strong belief that the user space libraries will be cracked soon too. The cracked version is here!
...between the public release of OSXi and the time some teenager in West Buttfuck, NJ reverse engineers this system and every Dell/HP/Micron/PeeCee clone in the universe can be aquafied...
Who did what now?
Didn't Intel want do have 'unique identifiers' in the Pentiun 4 chips? I seem to recall the idea was derided as an invasion of privacy, no one would every buy a computer where they could be tracked, blah, blah...
This sounds very similar to me, though perhaps now people will take it in exchange for legit movie downloading or something similar...
I find it kinda doubtful, though.
Is that you? Can you please kick Slashdot up a notch?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If Apple really wants to lock its software to its hardware, why doesn't it just make the core architecture so proprietary and so unusual that the software running on it simply cannot boot on standard machines? Let me put my foot in my mouth: wouldn't, say, neglecting to enable A20 make installation on many Intels a right royal pain?
I mean, by similar analogy, has anyone succeeded booting the IRIX 6.5 installer on a Sony PlayStation?
is Apple going to be able to charge 'normal' prices?
charge $300 for "certified" Intel based hardware
charge $125 for OSXi
charge $574 for the chip to make sure you stay "Certified"
And bingo -- you have a "Sub $1000" intel based Mac
----PROFIT!
They could. Yeah. I could have told you that.
And here's the analysis from Gartner:
So basically Apple has not chosen anything. Learn to read before you submit your crap to Slashdot, people. Is that so much to ask?
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
In the past, Apple relied on their intallation software to verify they were running on an Apple machine. I was able to load OS 9.2.2 on my Mac clone by using a patched installer. It ran fine, despite the lack of official support and the technical violation of the EULA.
I can't decide if this post is interesting, funny, insightful, or flamebait.
In my opinion, I expect that there will be some contingent of shady users attempting to hack OS X to run on commodity hardware. I actually look forward to this, but I think that Apple will care little about this because of the small number of users who will bother with this. If installing OS X on commodity hardware is possible, but non-trivial, Apple stands to lose very little (and perhaps even gain a tiny bit more market share from the /. crowd).
People have speculated about MS doing something similar in order to better control the platform, enable more meaningful DRM, and reduce Linux platform choices. In the MS context, the idea of restricted hardware has generally been written off as anticompetitive and evil.
So when Apple creates that "big brother" ad again, maybe the hammer should be thrown at a screen of Steve Jobs talking.
You cannot, I repeat CANNOT, have your cake and eat it too.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
What will probably be the solution would be an emulator, which would be a damn fast emulator too considiring it only has to virtualise the CPU. Hardware drivers wouldnt be an issue as the hardware is emulated, if they use their own bios then the bios can easily be reverse engineered and emulated, im sure the trusted computing thing wouldnt be hard either. my 2c.
There was a study a few years ago that asserted that OVER 65% of Microsoft Windows installations were pirated copies. This means that more than half of their market share is due to piracy.
If someone pirates Windows (or OSX) and puts it on their machine, they'll become comfortable with it. They'll use it. They'll tweak it. They'll download tools and applications to make it useful. They may even go upgrade the machine (RAM, vide card, whatever). They may even go PURCHASE applications for it.
The key here is, they're NOT using your competitor's OS on the same machine (in most cases). That gives you an advantage, even if you did lose the $129.00 sale on a Tiger purchase.
But back on track, I documented exactly this last week. Wow, some blogger reads Slashdot, takes our insight, writes up a blog as if he thought of it, and now he's famous?
Nice. This trend about using blogs to report the news, when blogs are nothing but plagarizing, content-recycling engines, is pretty hilarious.
From vnunet article "Apple could use the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip to ensure that only Mac computers can run its OS X operating system" Take note that the Gartner analysis points out that Windows can run on the new Intel-Macs, could the use of the TPM chip mean that Apple trying to prevent Windows from running on it's hardware??
Peter Corcoran
One ticket, straight down to -1 troll, thanks.
I am trolling
I guess Apple won't be getting much market share out of Linux. Hmm, free as in beer and speech OS, runs on anything that moves, or fancy overpriced OS which runs on overpriced hardware and DRMed up the tush?
to crack hardware while software cracking is just a matter of time. Imagine you could get OS X to boot you still need to write a driver for your video card. Anyone who has used Linux knows how poor the open source drivers are for the latest brand of video cards. Also would these drivers be illegal? Who is going to write them? It's not like cracking a registration code where some college student or amature can use a hex editor. This is some serious stuff.
I'm sure people will be successful in getting OS X to boot on a non-native Apple intel. However what about sound cards, video cards, ethernet, wireless, mouse, etc. And would these attempts at non-native Apple driver production be illegal?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Slashdot giveth,/ 1322208&tid=181&tid=3 4 2212&tid=93&tid=3
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/14
and Slashdot taketh away
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/14/14
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Come on Dvorak! Tell us how much danger this poses to Linux. Everyone is just going to start switching their intel servers to OSX, right??!?! Or their desktops will be OSX instead of linux, right??
It doesn't look like OSX will even run on commodity hardware. If Linux had anything to worry about in terms of "threats" from OSX, those are nicely laid to rest now.
So why is it that I never used Apple machines? Oh thats right...expensive proprietary hardware. OSX is a good BSD derivative, but its like buying DVD's that only work with 1 player.
I for one DO NOT welcome my new trusted computing overlords.
I will not buy a computer that limits my fair use rights, not from Apple, not from Intel, not from Microsoft. I suppose soon I will be quarenteened off the Internet and forced to use only circa 2005 equipment. So be it.
What goes through the head of people complaining about Slashdot groupthink?
I think it goes a little like this:
As I am right about everything, there must be some reason that people hold opinions different than mine. Aha! They are being brainwashed by their peers here on slashdot. It's groupthink. Good, now I can rest comfortably without having to think about opinions that contradict my cherished worldview.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."
I thought that this sort of tying of one product to another wasn't actually legal? Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
Rick: How can you DRM me, on what grounds?
Louie: I am shocked, shocked to find there is piracy going on here!
Croupier: Your iPod profits, sir.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
IBM, for instance, uses the chip securely to store user passwords and encrypt the contents of the hard drive.
... guess which one we currently have the technology to reverse?
Of course, there's a world of difference between using hardware protection to protect things for the user and using it to protect things from the user. Specifically, one relies on the security of a password stored inside a single human brain, and the other relies on the security of a password stored on millions of chips using current technology
As long as Apple/Intel don't force DRM upon me, I'll continue buying their products. The P3 serial fiasco didn't bother me, but TCPA garbage ruining my computing experience sure as hell will.
...what the reaction would be if Microsoft made Windows® start checking to make sure that only thier latest and greatest wireless mouse and keyboard were being used, refusing to boot if not.
---
Easier/cheaper to use the standard architecture rather than re-invent the wheel.
They may also see the dual booting to windows as an advantage that brings in former windows users (like me).
This could be the first "major" hardware that includes solid, next-generation DRM.
It'll be interesting to see if it can/will be cracked as easily as some on this site believe..
As an EE-type person it appears to me that hardware can be protected to a much larger degree than today; after all the only reasons why the XBOX and various other consoles were cracked is because their pcbs included debug solder points and various busses were exposed on the surface layer..
Amateur mistakes that won't be made the second time around.
Temporarily move the disk drive out of the Apple hardware to an ordinary PC as a "slave" drive. Boot the computer to alternate OS, search the slave drive to find the stretch of code in OSX that looks for the hardware identifier, NOP it out of the disk file using a hex editor, and then it copy/run it anywhere.
We knew that would happen, but here's the thing.
1. People will have that issue cracked within minutes of public release or maybe even before that time.
2. It will be fought in courts but ultimately it will be considered as legal in some areas because Apple sells the OS as a separate product and there's some kinda issue with selling one thing and requiring that you use it only with sanctioned something else. Ultimately, the consumer will emerge victorious and it might even be used as leverage against the whole DVD/CSS situation later on.
The right to tinker has still not been removed. It has been severely restricted in many areas, but we can still work on our own cars (link to that case about MFGrs being forced to release car computer diagnostic codes and stuff) and tweak and tinker on our software and hardware at home.
This is in no way a "copy protection" scheme. It's a monopoly protection scheme and it will be ruled as such. I just have trouble deciding which way it will go -- either a duplication of the chip or a hack to the OS and install code.
...if Apple just directly competed with Microsoft?
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
I'm struggling every day with low quality x86 hardware: melting video cards, defective RAM modules, buggy mainboard chipsets etc. A fully compatible Apple x86 would be a good platform for reliable and fairly priced Linux servers, but the presence of a chip that does strange things behind the curtain concerns me. Does anybody know if a non OSX system could completely disable this chip? Allowing other operating systems to disable the chip while requiring it enabled when using OSX would be a fair move from Apple, but I surely don't hold my breath on that.
NOTHING (including Apple itself) says Apple WILL be using this.
The article says apple COULD or MIGHT use this to lock Mac OS X to its own hardware; nothing more. They have no inside or special information - they're simply speculating on how Apple MIGHT lock Mac OS X to its own hardware IF it so desired. Apple also MIGHT not do anything of the sort, and simply limit Mac OS X to Apple hardware via the EULA, non-support on non-Apple hardware, lack of drivers, etc. (And this is news how, exactly?)
See, Apple has some real Old School engineers around. Folks that cut their teeth on nastiness like 1/4 track steppers and laser-marked disks, and that moved on to modern crypto. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just move along, lad.)
Fun fact about really good engineers. As they get older, they may get slower, but they tend to make up for it in wiliness. The current crop of 1337 haX0rz seem to be pretty good at reverse engineering hash functions for license strings. I doubt their sk1llz with a logic analyzer and storage scope, though.
If Apple does chooses to use the TCP to prevent users from installing OSX on non-Apple hardware I would like to see 99% of all open source projects adopt new licenses and possibly code that would restrict their code from running on OSX.
Restrict our freedom Apple, and you no longer get all of these killer apps for nothing. Fair is fair.
Apple hardware runs on Mac OS X
and the reason is that Apple isn't heavily into the online distribution trade. If I bought a Windows box with it I'd be a bit worried that things like Windows media player would become required and would override other apps, or I'd be required to consume microsoft-supplied services instead of others.
Apple's business model is about selling computers, not selling services. I don't care if iTunes locks to the TCM chip since I only use mp3 and don't use iTMS... (iTMS is marginally profitable at best. it exists to sell iPods and the tech isnt licenced.)
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
does not deserve the business it gets. Shit like this is draconian and only serves to lock people in. It's MS and Apple that drove me to Linux. I refused to be locked in.
All those geeks who want to hack the OS to work on standard PC's are going to most likely need a compatible Intel chipset, and of course and Intel CPU to go with it.
Definitely this was a brilliant move on Intels part.
Sounds to me like Apple is trying to have its cake and eat it.
Suspicion of any other company using DRM = Company is the devil, rarr.
Suspicion of Apple possibly using DRM = They need to protect their profits/that isn't their style anyways.
Is there a double standard here or what?
I don't know how feasible it is to protect users from themselves.
After all, I could take my PowerMac G5 and hook up one of the dying 15" CRT monitors I have upstairs to it, and I would not have broken any law. I would have ruined my user experience, yes, but Apple cannot prohibit this.
That being said, since Apple has beautiful fonts included in their OS releases, as far as I can tell they will continue to have beautiful fonts, whether they run on a gleaming new Mac or a beater Dell. So that's not the best example to use.
The real concern, I believe, is about driver support, which is very difficult to put together. However, it may be easier today than it was before, since so much stuff is built into motherboards nowadays, and so much of it is under Intel's control.
I'm not at all sure if now there is little reason to prohibit MacOS X from being installed in hardware. Since Apple no longer has to design or maintain a hardware platform, it might be quite feasible to transition into a software company and sell copies of MacOS X to the public. After all, that's Microsoft's core business, and last time I looked they weren't doing too badly.
Mac clones stole the high end of Apple's market by taking advantage of more powerful chips more rapidly. I don't think Apple's going to let that happen this time, and as long as Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive do their jobs, there will always be a premium market for Apple hardware.
But right now, Apple's dipping a toe in the water, and I'm sure their own market research will determine what they actually do. If I were them, I'd probably make it so it was slightly awkward, but not impossible, to install MacOS X on a generic PC. Apple's core market wouldn't bother, but they'd gain customers on the other end. Perhaps they could add product activation that would trigger only if the hardware wasn't Apple. That seems like it could be the fairest way to capture revenues while not antagonizing Apple customers.
D
One the bright side, we don't have to worry about "Product Activations" or Serial Numbers if they do decide to take this approach.
And how is that one supposed to be pronounced in a hip manner? If the current Version is Oh Ess Ex, the 11th OS must be pronounced Oh, Sexy! Hmmm...
As much as I'm an Apple fanboy, this is stupid. This has been reported on 8 times. Fricking Apple already announced that they won't let you run OSX on a non-Apple computer.
Even the twist on trusted computing is old news. Is there NOTHING happening in the tech world besides Apple-Intel? Even the earlier article today on Apple-piracy-OSX is just a recycle of comments the other day.
Dear editors: please stop posting rehashes and opinions and speculation as news. We may as well repoint slashdot.org to macrumors or thinksecret.
might beat Microsoft in the DRM game now. Funny how Apple always comes out "ahead". "Crackers! Start your...uh...sniffers?" I wanna see this thing running on a 4004 by next week.
What?
Apple is no longer a hardware company. You're living in the past, like they have been for the last 5 years.
Think about it. They don't make their own processors, graphics cards, memory, hard drives, fans, cords, peripherals, etc.
They get companies to make this stuff for them, they package it up, and sell it for a decent profit.
Aside from using a different architecture (which doesn't change the end user experience that much), the only thing that really sets a mac apart from a pc, is the software.
Apple is ALL ABOUT software. They themselves are now just starting to realize this.
Hell even the iPod... what truly separates it from other players? Yeah the hardware is good, and it looks slick, but it's the interface. And iTunes.
I guarantee you with OSX x86 in place, Apple's hardware business could completely dissapear and they will make more money than they ever have in the history of Apple computers.
The biggest confusion I'm seeing, and this is just another example of it, over this Apple move is that they are only moving to Intel _chipsets_, not to _IBMpc-platform_. There's a whole lot more to a platform than just a CPU.
In all likelihood, hackers will figure out how to make DRM hardware run alternate OS, or generic hardware run DRM OS. But at the end of the day, this is only going to be a small community, and from Apple's point of view, a relatively marginal one (despite the occasional slashdot headliner).
Most of the people who pay a bit of a premium for Apple's products do so because of the overall polish of the product incl. the seamless hardware/software integration. They don't want the kind of Windows annoyingness where things don't always work and so on. I don't see that this is really going to change.
For Apple, it's simply about making an adjustment under the hood. It's like they are an airplane manufacturer and found that rolls-royce engines just don't meet the requirements now, or on the future product roadmap, so they're pushing out the new rolls-royce engines, and putting in GE. For the customer (whether it's the airline itself, or the end user to takes journey on the airplane) there is really going to be little difference, except now the plane is going to go a little further with the new engines. The airplane manufacturer shows really good business sense by not locking themselves into one engine supplier: Apple has done the same thing. It's far more difficult for someone like Apple, because of how dependant the OS and applications are on the engine, but it looks like Apple's been sweating the stuff in the background to ensure that they aren't locked in.
For a powerbook user, they'll not know that Intel is under the hood: OS/X will continue to work just like it did before, but what the user will notice is improved power and performance. They would have noticed the same thing if the migration was to an improved PPC chip rather than an Intel one.
For Apple to try and offer a generic Intel based OS/X would require a substantial undertaking: i.e. verification in a wide range of IBMpc system chipsets and busses, various types of PCCARD, USB and other interface controllers, etc. This would be a mammoth undertaking if they wanted to ensure that the end user quality was right.
So if we can discount that Apple is going down the "generic" IBMpc route, then really, the only other option is that Apple is going to allow third-party hardware, that is fully certified (as an entire product, rather than certifying individual components/peripherals) to run OS/X. If so, I don't see how using Intel cpu over PPC really makes a big difference here.
Intel for Apple is purely a cost, performance and availability move. It's about some engineering of components under the hood, that apart from price and performance issues, don't and won't impact the end user.
Someone else, somewhere, sorry for the vagueness, said 75% of Apple's revenue is from hardware sales. Let's suppose this is true. Let's suppose that 25% of revenue comes from software sales.
.... if they were to stop selling hardware and doubled their software sales, would they be as profitable as now?
Suppose they gave away the hardware, that is, the sticker price was $0. Suppose also that marginal costs of software are also 0, so they could easily produce 10 times or 100 times as much software for no additional cost. Well, there would be manuals and boxes, but it wouldn't be like hardware.
Seems to me that selling 4 times as much software would provide all the revenue they currently get. And I suspect that increasing sales four fold would nto be particularly difficult if OS X could run on pretty much any x86 machine.
And if they stopped producing hardware altogether, a lot of the staff would be unnecessary. There would be a significant drop in R&D costs, thus requiring a lot less fotware to be sold to make up for the lack of hardware sales.
I wonder
Infuriate left and right
I wonder how many people were searching the p2p networks on Sunday for "Intel x86 OS X Tiger."
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
Why not?
:)
What's the point of having cake you can't eat?
"My guess is not many. Unless they work for the RIAA and MPAA."
Are you implying that the RIAA/MPAA are the ONLY one's being hit by copyright violaters?
"Wonder how many buyers want to buy a trusted computer?"
Is this the point were we abandon our "don't blame the technology, blame the users" position?
"Trusted Computing? Just wait untill that makes the rounds. "
It already is.
"Of all the stupid moves."
No more so than being a copyright violater. But we would rather blame others for our actions.
Ahem:
In other words, this is just idle speculation from a market research company. This article is flamebait.
Or *BSD or any FOSS OS for that matter?
It would be one thing for Apple to lock the OS to the platform.
It would be a totally different thing for Apple to lock the platform to the OS. Particularly if DRM makes any sort of inroads.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
...I expect it will be possible to virtualize it and so have the OS run on a conventional PC. So ultimately it doesn't actually matter what the hardware is, and there'll certainly be no need for a mod chip. And of course as long as the real CPU is basically the same as the virtual CPU, ie. Intel, the performance hit from virtualization probably won't be too bad.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
It's a long-standing practice from Apple, just like the boot ROM that you had to have on a motherboard to get MacOS to run.
Apple knows that people will pay a premium for their hardware because (A) it looks fancy, and (B) it's the only way to get their OS.
So, just because they're switching chips is no reason for them to stop locking in the hardware market, too...
I'm actually saddened that they're switching - not because I like Macs, but because it means less overall competition in the CPU market.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
If Apple pulls off this transition without dying first due to "Osborne Effect" -- big if -- then they could conceivably end up selling Apple-logoed clones. Lots and lots of companies in China can build X86-based PCs. (China already builds iPods.) I suspect Apple could try to pocket some extra profits by selling Apple-logoed X86 boxes that are assembled by a multitude of lowest-cost suppliers.
IBM did this prior to the Lenovo deal, contracting out to Samina-SCI, in particular. Those IBM desktops were really Samina-SCI boxes with IBM logos, black cases, and a tiny bit of IBM engineering. That approach turned IBM PCs into a break-even business. Apple could do marginally better, perhaps. Apple would add a logo, "California-designed" case, and proprietary BIOS, and, presto!, it's a Mactel!
Though interesting as this info is, I can't find a reference anywhere in this analysis that validates Gartner's claims. I think this should be taken with a large grain of Sodium Nitrate.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
If they open it up to every motherboard/x86 processor... that Blue Screen of Deaths may occur in the coveted OSX too?
*grin* It isn't easy to be compatible for every hardware configuration as Windows is. Granted, Windows sucks but it's still an impressive piece of engineering.
If I can't play my games, then I have no interest in a Mac. And I will not pay the premium they require because they won't let me build my own system.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
And with two stories in the last week, I have high hopes for ::Cue::Catdot making a comeback!
... will it take until someone just removes the check?
Here is a variant I find more plausible:
MacOS X comes with a variant of Darwin that supports Apple hardware only.
Every software update overwrites the critical Darwin components.
You can not easily update your system because updating would reinstall the hardware-limited version of Darwin.
Whenever Apple publishes an update you will have to wait for someone to provide a patched version of the update.
Soon evil[tm] hackers will write patches with spyware...
I know, it's a dumbass phrase. But "retain one's cake for the purposes of contented admiration, and simultaneously consume it" doesn't have the same ring to it.
But the bell just rang and you're going to be late for homeroom you naughty little monkey!
User pirates OS
OS reqires somewhat recent mac hardware
User cannot pirate hardware and must buy it
Apple profits on hardware...
Hope this helps.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
If true then this means that MacOS _will_ run on generic hardware, otherwise no "dongle" would be needed. I say it's good news for all those who would like to play with it without paying any dough first. It's a shame that such hypocrisy exists, but I'm happy for Apple too! This kind of "piracy" can be nothing but good for them. Drool... I so wish that Win would finally get a serious and - despite everything - much more sane alternative.
The linked article refers to the TPM chipset and a Gartner speculative report. So in effect, Slasdot is trying to report a speculative Gartner report as fact.
So much FUD, so little news.
It was fun while it lasted, but the inevitable is creeping closer.
:)
Check out opencores.org. Since modern OSes and Apps aren't really CPU-bound for general CPU tasks, it's feasible to think about a mass move away from them to slower, but fully configurable, open core CPUs.
At part of Computer Science study at CMU, you build a basic CPU using Verilog to program a Xilinx FPGA (or did about 5 years ago). It wasn't too hard, and it was pretty fun and inspiring to know you controlled the whole stack down to the physics of gates
Now, FPGAs are nowhere near VLSI chips in their combined gate-count and speed, but I bet it doesn't matter. Plus, FPGAs open up a whole new way of thinking about hardware.. check out MIT's Oxygen computing effort.
Take the Apple/Intel thing with a grain of salt. In the long term, they're in a relative position of weakness if they choose to abuse the market with fascist chip politics.
Basically, you're saying that even if nobody buys Apple hardware, Apple can survive selling OS X. But that just makes them another Microsoft competitor. Maybe they can make that work, especially if Microsoft continues to produce software that's less secure than a soggy cardboard box. Then again, the marketplace is littered with unsuccessful alternatives to desktop Windows: BeOS, Solaris x86, QNX, and (might as well admit it) Linux. Apple will think twice before refighting that particular battle! And in any case, they' think more than twice before walking away from the hardware market, which still accounts for most of their profits.
Just pointing out--when it was INTEL that was going to have all their chips broadcast a serial number that could be use to recognize PC's when (IIRC) the P3 came out a few years back, there was an uproar.
When Microsoft considered locking you in to a specific machine with your purchased software, no matter what their license terms said, there was shock, outrage, and horror.
Yes, I've read TFA, and I know this is speculation, not the official Apple position. But still.
Change the name Apple to Intel or Microsoft and you'd have riots on Slashdot.
Ah, but Apple is a Hardware Company, not a Software Company. You could say the same of IBM, but they still sell AIX. Apple is a software company. They're not a software lead company, but the fact remains they're a software company--they have a very large software portfolio.
You could make a similar argument that Microsoft is an operating system company, not an office application company, but it's not really a helpful distinction--they make both, and whether one drives the growth of the other may be true, but ultimatly irrelevant. And if it was Microsoft trying to tie "one thing they make, and people really like" to "another thing they make, that many would argue is overpriced and nor really necessary for the firt thing," you might have an antitrust investigation. Oh, wait....
Tying is illegal, no matter whether the company doing it is someone we're nostalgiac for or someone we hate.
Out of curiosity, now that Apple's sold out their enthusiast community by abandoning Power, when are people going to stop giving them a free pass on "Applie is a force for good in the world, and can do no wrong"????
I understand your point but normal journalists has been doing this since forever. In the old days they read each others papers and rewrote the stories.
A few years ago I read a Danish major news paper along with NYT / Herald Tribune. You could find unaccredited articles in the Danish paper that were almost a verbatim translation of something I had read a few days earlier..
Same thing with regional papers. Blogs are just a faster medium.
Help fight continental drift.
Seriously, this will get cracked the day the first intel machine is released.
I think apple realizes how futile something like that would be. Software Crackers are a slippery bunch -- something so simple as a hardware-embedded serial number would be circumvented so fast it would make your head spin.
It's been a long time.
While this latest "revelation" by Apple has both good and bad possible outcomes...I'm beginning to wonder if the leaders of Apple have some communist genes running through their blood...
And people say Microsoft is totalitarianist...At least Microsoft lets me run on whatever hardware I want...(at least, to all humanly possible degrees)
That'll solve several problems by very different means, depending on what you mix it with.
Mix it with sausage, and you're cured.
Mix it with charcoal & sulfur, and you'll have a blast.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Not an announcement from Apple. The author of this article is playing it as if it's a bona-fide fact that this is absolutely going to happen.
It's not a fact, yet. Only a possibility.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
State the minimum hardware requirements on OSX packaging as all Apple brand, but ship without locks. Those, like myself, that go where the angels don't can still give Apple $100+ to play on other hardware. Apple can claim the 5th on all glitches. Sheesh!
Apple's decision to drop IBM's Power CPUs in favor of Intel chips was already a bad one and in case Apple would try pushing DRM they'd be digging their own grave. I can't think of anyone who would actually buy a DRM based system. Dell and others would sell millions of additional DRM-free systems.
So it has finally dawn on Apple that they're a software company shipping expensive hardware dongle?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
As Apple announced previously, OS X for Intel will be designed to run only on Intel Macs. Ever since then, people have been speculating that Apple might use Intel's Trusted Platform Module chip to protect OSX.
They still are.
Apple still isn't saying
The fact of the matter is...their hardware sales would go straight in the shitter if they released OSX to run on more reasonably priced IBM comatible hardware. They would be back to selling Mac's to educational institutions, and artistic fanatics wearing black turtlenecks and wire rimmed glasses.
A full on frontal assault on Microshit is not in the cards for Apple. They could do it, but I doubt Stevie can see past the "beauty" of his cases.
I'll be shopping on ebay next year for Intel boards w/cracked BIOS for OSXi...How about you?
The homebuilt computer market is fairly small compared to the prebuilt, if apple could allow only those with home-built PCs the choice of OSX, either by using a specific motherboard or something else, they would still be at a position to grow thier OS market amongst "the guys that people ask about computers" while still holding on to thier hardware market.
*.sig
I went to WWDC and nobody conclusively answered the OF question. However, there are a couple reasons to believe that OF will continue to be used.
* Target Disk Mode. If this is suddenly taken away, many, many people are going to be pissed off. OF allowed for this to be easily done because of the architecture. I don't think this feat will be easily replicated in under a year.
* No PCs use Open Firmware. Easiest way to start keeping people from running OS X on their non-macs.
* The BIOS does not show the entire device tree. Frankly, this is because the BIOS is an idiotic way to continue to work with hardware. An incomplete IORegistry is not something Apple can afford to ship, as IOKit is something of a crown jewel for hardware level programming on the Mac.
* Its not difficult. Given that Open Firmware was something that has been recently moved to, and that it is relatively platform agnostic, it would be ridiculous for Apple to pour all the engineering effort (including TDM) into a BIOS and not simply spend minimal effort moving OF to their new motherboards. Apple is not stupid.
* Have you seen the inside of the developer kits? They are the most slapdashed devices on the face of the planet. They aren't selling them because they're pieces of engineering hackery. Given Apple's previous motherboard designs, there is no way they would ship with anything resembling the dev kits, other than having an Intel chip in them
And, the arguments for custom chipsets.
* I2C and everything else. Apple uses I2C extensively and Intel does not natively include them on any PC chipsets. Not only I2C, but they have some bizarre things hooked up to GPIO for modems, NMI support, thermal sensors, and other things that CAN NOT be just "thrown out." The driver (not userland) codebase changes would be too large for them to tell developers two weeks ago and expect them to change everything in less than a year. The only thing new for Apple is DDR2, which they may or may not use.
* Too Easy To Lock Out. With a custom ASIC, its way too easy to throw in a dozen checks for dumb things like I2C thermal sensor stubs and the like and automatically prevent people from using OS X on their PCs. Again, more free lockout by not having to re-engineer everything. It just makes too much sense.
So, anyway, until the first mac ships without OF, I think its too early to write it off.
-a7
Ingestion of sodium nitrate can lead to blue skin... but apple just switched away from big blue, so I'd recommend sodium chloride instead.
-John.Self Serving Sig: Hosting Comparison
That must be a great experience, it gets italics and quotes.
I don't know what kind of computers YOU build, but with my Antec case, I have none of the "EVIL" PC issues that you descibed.
To change out memory, I merely have to open the side of the case, turn the case on its side (big hardship there), and insert the RAM.
Harddrives, CD/DVD Drives are a bit more complicated. I have to open the case (again using the handy side panel), turn the case on its side (horrors!), and, if I'm feeling froggy, use 4 screws to connect the slide rails to the side of the drive that allow me to insert or remove the drive from the case from the case front. Connect the cables. Done. Total of about 4 minutes.
I'm glad you like your Mac, but you really can't compare aan expensive PowerMac to an El Cheapo case that was poorly designed.
What I like about my PC is that I can add and or remove components without being held captive to a single hardware provider.
I am watching this issue very closely HOPING that Apple decides to offer the OS without strongarming the consumer to buy "Official Apple Hardware". I would love to run OSX at home, but again, I also want to have more control over my computer than Mr. Jobs has felt in the past was prudent.
I may be labeled a troll for this, but IMHO, selling OSX "AS AN OS" without hardware restrictions will be the only way we will have any competition on the desktop front. Linux just ain't there yet for the vast majority of computer users.
When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
thill???
'til
until
Apple is about to embrace treacherous computing on a scale that could only be realized on the Wintel platform in the entertainment industries hottest and wettest dreams.
Those who in spite of evidence to the contrary preached Apple as the platform of freedom will soon be shown their naivite in spades.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Yes. The fact of Microsoft would remain.
And without the unique and experience of running Mac hardware for the sheer pleasure of it, Microsoft would squash Apple under the existential weight of its history of monopolistic practices, past and present.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Somebody better tell Chris Seibold.
No, it is you who is missing something. Read what I wrote, not what you want to read. Look at the big picture. Here, let me help you.
...
Let's make up some bogus figures here.
Suppose total revenue is $1 billion.
$250 million comes from software.
$750 million comes from hardware.
How the development costs are split is immaterial. But let's just suppose that profits are 25% and that software costs a fortune to develop:
$250 million profit.
$250 million hardware development costs.
$500 million software costs.
Wow, software loses money!
OK, now let's drop hardware development and quadruple software revenue, like I suggested:
$1000 million comes from software.
$0 comes from hardware.
Hey, lookee here, same gross revenue, and since software has zero marginal costs
Software development costs: $500 million.
Profit: $500 million.
Infuriate left and right
Why haven't i seen anyone asking for WinXP-runability on the Mac-Boxes? I find that part to be at least as interesting as trying to get OS X to run on a normal PC. After all, if OS X gets locked on the Apple-Boxes, it would still be interesting being able to run Windows on that same box, "just in case", which would mean having both worlds on the same - potentially high quality - machine...
Keep drinking the coolaide Mac boy.
I am amazed at all the mindless Mac zealots raving about how OS X will be available on commodity hardware and how this will be so great for Apple. Guess what, it won't. Steve Jobs said Apple will be the only hardware OS X will officially run on. Plus the move puts Apple in the same playing field philosophically as Linux and windows. It remains to be seen if Apple's philosophy will be adopted by anyone in the buy it cheap crowd. So lets be honest cheap is not a selling point of Apple nor will it ever be. I will be very surprised and happy if some of Apple's Philosophies get adopted by the current Intel PC crowd, but I am not holding my breath. Also every pro Mac industry rag is saying how this is such a good move for Apple to use Intel because they have the better processor road map. Guess what, they don't. IBM will continue to make superior processors in the long run. Unfortunately they had to delay on some deliverables to Apple because a small market segment called the gamming industry needed a new chip and that is where IBM spent their resources. You won't see any major game console using Intel as their main processor for the next decade. Why you ask? because IBM has a better, cheaper, faster processor road map than Intel. Not a general purpose processor you say? Well it still remains to be seen if Intel will produce superior processors than IBM in the next several years except in the mobile arena.
This move is terribly risky and everyone is mindlessly coating it with a spoon full of sugar. I hope it goes well for Apple but I have to admit that it might not. This is not a slam dunk for Apples short term viability. The only significant reason Apple is moving to Intel is because they were no longer competitive in the mobile market and they could not weather any erosion of their share. So Steve did the only thing he could, he gave IBM the finger and made the phone call to Intel. Smart? yes with an exclamation but not without risks to their desktop market. I will agree completely with Apple making gains in the mobile market because of this move but their other segments will most likely suffer. To what extent I nor anyone else could predict. I will be among the rest to lift my glass and cheer Apple when they have had a successful transition but I will not mindlessly proclaim success when they have just only begun this monumental task.
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
Everyone seems to be assuming the validation's going to be in the OS binaries, and can just be NOPed out with an editor. What if the actual chip requires constant challenge-response keys from the OS, or it shuts the processor down? I doubt as many people will be able to easily mod their surface-mount hardware.
If this hardware DRM existed in the 80's and 90's, Apple would perhaps have moved to a lower cost commodity product like Intel long ago in order to lower their production expenses.
Did you really think apple would give up its hardware market. Most agree that apple is ahardware company first. Plus, who the hell really wants osX on a dell. I want the cool mac hardware. :-)
[...]it could also be used to distinguish a Mac computer from a model made by Dell or any other Windows vendor.
Groan.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
I would think a company with a reasonably slick os could make a profit...it's been done before..banking on hardware sales for the future would be risky at best.
However, I'm fairly sure that at least the first release of OsXi will be locked down to mac hardware. Not because it will make a bunch of new hardware sales (it will), nor because it buys them additional time to get manufacturer driver support (it does), but probably to keep Mr. Gates (an apple shareholder) off their backs.
"You're releasing OsX for Intel?!?!? Prepare to Die!"
"No, no...it will only run on macs...really..."
"Oh..okay then...but one false move and I pull Office."
One year later "iWorks and OO.o are done and gaining acceptance...why don't we drop the hardware lock..."
Dave
Even if Apple did put this "protection" on their software, how many hours do you think would happen between the release and hackers getting all over it?
Apple preserving their hardware-software lock is what makes the iPod experience work... plus, I imagine they will build a WINE[-like] layer into the OS to run your favorite Windows apps...:o
Still, this is a DUH thread with no new information-- pure speculation, but it's a good guess.
an internet age. Steve Jobs is not Big Brother.
The kind of paranioa and disconnectedness is only possible if and when you can keep information away from people.
If you're a Muslim, or a Jew or a Catholic or an Arian nationer you only listen to one immam or rabbi or pope or nut-case and he only tells you what he needs to make you stay a Muslim, or a Jew or a Catholic or an Arian nationer (or to get you to 'push the plunger.') Religion is the antimedia.
Steve Jobs is definitely *not* running around with "the ONE book" claiming that you need no other source.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Having OSX run on low end junk would do Apple little good. The whole package buisness model makes sense for Apple and they should stick with it.
m l.
I still think they will expand their market share and increase appeal among former PC users even if the OS is locked against running on generics, and cruicually, is open for dual booting windows. It becomes the perfect migration path.
I have been a Wintel user for years, but if my next machine can be a mac OSX machine, that can also dual boot into windows, that will be a significant differentiator. So I will be considering Mac HW for my next computer.
I am so intrigued by this idea that all my PC HW purchase plans are off the table until the MacIntels appear. Not the Osborne Effect everyone was expecting eh. Macs announcement has me killing a Wintel purchase plans while I wait.
Ergonomics (esp noise) and design do matter to me, so I never buy crappy low end PC cases/junk power supplies etc, so it is not like I am getting $300 computers anyway.
If I don't get a MacIntel next, I am thinking this will be my next case:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article249-page1.ht
That is $160 just for the case with no PS. Custom build choosing high quality components and you get close to Mac prices anyway. I strongly suspect Apple will have some really nice lower priced Mini type computers for those who are price sensitive.
IMO those who want junk commodity HW probably don't care that much about getting a high quality OS (if they actually even purchase it).
Go MacIntel.
I hate the DRM on the Untrusted Computing platform. The reasons why are numberless. Apparently we were right in our worst case analysis when some pointed out that the DRM in the Intel chipsets would be used for the Mac software. Expect that movies, music, and all sorts of other goodies will be locked down as well.
Since encryption is part of the Untrusted Computing scheme, it is effortless to point out that cracking the lockdown to enable one to port the OS to an AMD processor, even if it can be done, will be a violation of, oh yes, wait for it: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Jail Time for running your software on an AMD box.
Not only have they thrown down the gauntlet, they have stuck their chin out for the opening blow. Cracking this unholy alliance of the DMCA and Apple is now Job One for anyone with blood in their veins.
When Intel supposedly was going to include trusted computing support in their processors, there were a lot of comments to the effect of, Im never buying another Intel processor. So where are all the I'll never buy another Mac if this is true commnents? Where are all the Apple is using DRM to prop up their failing business model comments.
Vote for Pedro
The article is pure speculation, i.e., OSX for x86 MIGHT emerge directly from Steve's ass.
There is nothing to back up the claims, thus no reason to read this.
Even if this hardware dongle was true, it would be quickly bypassed just like every other dongle. With Darwin source I'm sure it would take no time at all to replace the components needed.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
While Apple has a 'trusted' chip for ensuring the OS runs on their hardware, why not use that chip for other purposes?
iTunes?
drm in quicktime?
third party software copy protection?
It doesn't concern me that Apple wants to make sure their OS just runs on their machines, but it does concern me that they may decide to use this 'functionality' for a more general-purpose DRM scheme.
Now you'll be able to run down to your local mom & pop computer store and buy a PCI card that's got a hacked version of this security chip on it, which'll let you run Mac OS X poorly on an otherwise open platform!
Maybe Apple will start using so many custom chips on their motherboards that PCs will be vastly incompatible, and somebody like Orange Micro will make a PCI add-on card that costs hundreds of dollars which will let you run Mac OS X with native hardware on a no-name, incompatible PC!
"Look ma! I saved $200 from buying Apple hardware!"
"Yeah, son, but you paid $300 for a mod chip and extra hardware'
"But look, ma! I'm a hacker!#!!@"
Wow, so many totally appropriate threads for ASOT to post in! Is he/she being hidden deep in the bowels of the sewer system in Cupertino? :P
Well of course they will do that.
While they do make a few bucks off selling their OS, that isnt the main market they are in, so they wont be making it easy not to have to buy apple hardware to run OSX on..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...does it run Linux? :)
that spins off a virtual PC with a fake security chip in it to fool the OS into thinking it is running on 'blessed' Apple hardware
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
Jobs said nothing of the sort.
It was Apple VP Phil Schiller, and "not letting OS X run on non-Apple hardware" doesn't mean it HAS to be stopped via technological means.
So again, this is speculation, at best.
I cant believe they're doing this! What will Micro...oh its apple. Carry on then, nothing to see here.
Seems that they are using a X86 darwin. How hard would it be to "patch" the software to not look for the chip? Really?
I really don't see how any hardware tie can work when the Darwin kernel is open source. Everything running is user space has to rely on kernel to get access to the hardware and it will be trivial to modify the kernel to tell all the user space process esthat Apple tries to protect that yes this is indeed a Macintosh.
This post is crap. Pure crap. 1) The article never said that Apple was using TPM. It stated that "An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment for this story." Did the submitter OR poster ever even read the article?? 2) Why the hell would we want a link to an overly speculative article that just summarizes one possible scenario? Not to mention that the prediction is just about the same length as the article, and written by a reputable research firm. See the real "news analysis" at: http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=1290 59
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
Since before the announcement, the source Darwin has been avaliable to download, and actually has an x86 install cd for download.
The source is licensed via the APSL which is free software compatible, but not GPL compatible. Licensing aside, its the kernel that sits between the bios and the 'osx' part on top.
Its open source, and even if it wasn't; they couldn't make it impossible to run osx on top of a custom kernel. Oh sure, they could make it really hard, but as Microsoft learned with the XBox, as the movie studios with DeCSS, as DRM cds' learned from a simple sharpie... It WILL be hacked.
The difference is that Apple won't have to provide support. If I call up apple and ask for help as to why it won't work; why it keeps crashing? not their problem.
Whether you develop on an actual x86-apple or on an hacked-what-used-to-be-win-xp box, higher level programs should definitely work, and many lower level ones should. This is what they get by moving to x86. Tons more developers. Almost perfect windows emulation. Better Linux (face it, lots of stuff for 'linux' is really for x86) compatibility.
I'm not sure about them having perfect windows emulation tho... that can be attributed to the death of OS/2. But from Windows emulation, they will get people who develop /from/ osx, and anybody whose done enough cross-platform java knows that it isn't. Which means cross-platform apps will start to look better in osx (although it can be argued that they already do).
As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Which will be five years coming.
How about this: George Lucas created THX sound as a standard for movie theatres. As far as I know they give out clear specs for what can/should be used as hardware and then if the theatre passes a final check they get the only one piece of hardware (I forgot what exactly it was), which puts them apart from the rest, which you cannot buy anywhere else. This could work for Apple as well: They give out clear requirements, test the Dell, HP, and whatever hardware and then give them the one thing that is missing (the 'Altivec-Unit' or something similar). This way they would still control the 'experience' and make money on the tests/licensing of approved hardware and the one piece of hardware that sets them apart from the mass PCs.
I don't see that there's any need to limit the spread of OS X to non-Apple hardware. Just not support it with "Software Update's.
An Apple, or any PC for that matter, that is not connected to the internet is ALONE.
That means no email, no browser, no access to any information at all. That is such a small number of machines that its not worth thinking about. Nor are they likely to be a source for much piracy.
The rest of the machines need to 'call home' at least once a month, or week, or day, for the Software updates to work.
When they 'call home' they can report their CPU ID and be granted a pass or launch a browser to a page saying 'Buy an Apple instead of using your hacked copy."
Who needs security on the client side when the server side is so much more secure?
25m to 100M CPU ID as primary keys into a table is no big deal for a server anymore. Apple can track every system they make, their geshtalt and track their legitimacy.
The internet works both ways, people. BOTH ways.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
apple is a hardware company.
since the mac came out, and even before, apple has been using revenue from hardware sales to support os development. if millions of home users stampede to emachines discount boxes for their os x platform then, apple's real source of revenue will dissappear.
Apple should not be stated any more as a mere hardware company, that might have been true in the 90's or before that, but now it has been constantly shifting to consumer products and services. The iPod (with all its iXXXX add-ons) is meaning more each time to Apple's sales, and has been crucial in the new Apple hype, much more than OSX and BSD. Also iTunes Stores, and Apple Stores have been incresingly important to them.
On the other hand, Apple integrates hardware but does not develop it, then they add a cool software and a slick design, which they do develop and which are the important part of their PC business model. It seems to me, that on the mac side, Apple is much more about software.
I think its great... look a the PC market... you have people buying B and C grade memory to put in 4 layer motherboards that are practically given away... the mobo and ram, given they are high quality make a ton of difference.
I personally have a dual 3ghz xeon box with 4gb of ram running Vmware ESX server (linux kernel is at its underpinnings) and its been online going on 7 months without the need for a reboot.. put cheap hardware in the mix and you end up with blue screens, kernel panics, etc that are nearly impossible to trace..
sig goes here!
Here's the actual facts:
But Apple has stated that it would prevent users from installing OS X on non-Mac hardware.
The video clip I saw said that Apple would not enable Mac OS X to run on non-Mac hardware. This is the only statement I've seen or heard so far. This story does not present any new statement from Apple, nor even any statement at all, and it also says:
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment for this story, saying that the company it is not yet ready to reveal product specifications.
Thus we do not know anything more about Apple's plans than we did last Monday.
A spokeswoman for the TPG confirmed to vnunet.com that there is nothing preventing Apple from implementing the module.
This is obviously true, but we already knew that hardware copy protection in OS X is an option for Apple, so this is still not news.
I would not be at all surprised if Apple did have some plans along these lines, but there's nothing in this story to support the headline "Security Chip to limit OS X to Macs" or "Apple to Lock OSXi to Apple Hardware".
The only thing in the story that is attributable to Apple is the same statement that has been widely misquoted since last Monday, that Apple would not "enable" running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.
Fixing the bugs you speak of are the job of the developers, they aren't "lost opportunities". The time isn't lost forever, it's built into the product cycle.
The software cost doesn't grow, it's the same as always - the cost is to support your product so that it keeps the market share that generates the revenue, and to do that, you can't sit on your laurels.
The support can go back to the 2 year software update cycle, but at the end of the 2 years, you won't have customers.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
Where do you people get these names, seriously? It's OS X still, version 10.5 will be the first Intel compile publically released
...and that's all there is to it.
It just hit me that this is, like, more evil than Microsoft.
Am I the only one getting tired of this sort of things posted again and again? Will this continue till the day when a Mac with intel inside ships?
Lots of folks miss some important points.
How do you define OS X running on a PC?
The most important part of OS X already runs on x86, right? Cf. Darwin.
The part that doesn't give you the same OS X experience on a PC right now is Carbon/Cocoa/Quartz and the assorted technology that stays closed source.
Did people forget how those who have had unsupported Macs run OS X on their machine? Install Darwin first, and then install the rest second. The installer wouldn't install OS X on those machines, but it runs... unsupported.
Do Apple discourage those who install OS X on unsupported machines implementing some prevention mechanism? No.
They don't seem to care. Perhaps they balance between the gain for implementing such a measure and the loss of sales for not implementing. It will take a lot of effort and bad PR to make sure OS X doesn't run on unsupported hardware, while they don't probably gain much. Those who have obsolete hardware might just get pissed and buy a PC from somewhere.
Another point to consider is that XCode uses gcc as backend. This is why it is so easy to compile applications created with XCode as Universal binary. I would think it's a matter of makefiles used by XCode. One can compile Universal Binary today. I am not sure if Intel compiler can be used by the time Mac with intel ships. I somehow doubt that majority of the OS will be compiled with Intel compiler.
What may happen when the Mac with intel ships is that probably the components of the OS, all the way up to the applications may have some odd compiler switches turned on that utilize some features only available to the CPU available to the said Mac. Such a software may just crash when run on a CPU that don't support those features. They can choose to ensure maximum compatibility with all the available x86 platform, but probably Apple won't bother.
What Apple at this moment is telling us when they say "They won't allow OS X to run on just about any PC" is probably the installer will refuse to install OS X if the PC didn't come from Apple.
But this doesn't mean that OS X cannot be installed on those machines. Using the same method as used by people with obsolete Macs, OS X might install. And it will boot to the point where one doesn't have GUI.
Still, it may not run properly. Lots of components may just crash, the driver may not be available for, say, network cards.
Some lucky falks with the right combination of hardware might be able to run OS X without much hassle. But they are not supported. They cannot call Apple asking how to install the damn thing on their Dell.
This, I think, is as far as Apple will go. Some pepole probably can run OS X, but it will require lots of effort and some luck. For all practical purposes, installing OS X on generic PC wil not pay off. If one needs some specific combination of hardware to run OS X, she might as well buy a stylish Mac. Perhaps it is possible to build a PC that can run OS X, buying parts from NewEgg or even Tiger Direct (!), but why bother when you can get a legitimate copy of OS X with certain levels of support from Apple? This is probably a good measure of copy protection.
I think the position of Apple with regard to piracy is that they don't care. They know that pirating OS X to run on generic PCs don't make economic sense, on the one hand, and on the other hand, they don't encourage people to install OS X on generic PCs. It is far less likely that Apple considers piracy as a chance to expand their market share.
They'll just refuse support unless the hardware is apple hardware...
------ no thanks... I've quit
providing "Software Update"s servers with a valid CPU ID as a primary key to a hardware record that would match the rest of the machine's geshtalt.
Apple builds the machines, issues them with a CPU and creates a row per CPU ID.
The client machines don't have to be impregnably secure, just as long as the server is.
And I really don't see that big a market for OS X that they would make mucho bucks in the Windows or the Linux market share.
If you want to run OS X, why not buy a Mac. If you don't care to, don't buy a Mac. Its not that big a deal. Everybody's in a twitter about breaking Apple's chops when they get the chance.
Maybe there won't be any chops to break. What's the point of owning a Mac, or any computer, if you can't connect?
Think about it. You CAN'T CONNECT! Your CPU is ALONE! Who wants a LONE CPU? (And that's why Apple is not particularly worried.)
A CPU ID on a secure server for software updates takes care of the problem.
Its a freebie for Apple if OS X 'escapes' because they don't have to support it.
Instead it becomes a web browser ad for buying a real Apple whenever 'Software Update' runs. (Which would reveal the IP address of the sender to boot.)
Nah, Apple doesn't have to do a thing on the client machines.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
OpenFirmware/EFI - I'm hoping for OpenFirmware, but ANYTHING other than the standard old BIOS.
Apple has already stated that they will not be using Openfirmware. They will be using Intel's chipset and they may well use a conventional BIOS. In any case, it doesn't matter: we already have the source code to the second stage bootloader in the OpenDarwin source tree. This approach could be used to (for example) keep Windows off Macs, or alongside a certificate repository maintained by the trusted chipset to keep you from running a cracked Mac OS X kernel to sniff DRM-related traffic going to iTunes (or the DVD player, or other DRM-aware application), or to keep iTunes DRM from working on a cracked kernel at all, but it can do little to keep Mac OS X off Wintel clones.
Signed Kernel - I wouldn't be suprised to see Apple use some kind of integrety check on the kernel during boot.
We already have the source code to the Darwin release corresponding to 10.4.1. People have already replaced components in Mac OS X with modified versions of the corresponding components in Darwin to get Mac OS X running on unsupported Apple and Mac clone hardware. It is unlikely that the kernel could be used this way. Any such check would be more likely in the upper layers of the OS, Quartz and Aqua, long after boot.
There's no reason to bother with VMware or Sheepshaver or MOL/MOM except as a diagnostic tool for figuring how to crack the copy protection. Once cracked, the OS could be run on any hardware for which drivers exist.
Microsoft's ostensible concern that de-integrating the browser was going to cause problems was, at best, like saying allowing commodity car batteries would harm the automotive experience (in actuality, it was a lot more like saying that swapping out the car stereo would harm the experience).
Apple's concern with hardware is a lot more like saying swapping out the engine could result in some issues. Sure, you can do it, and if you know what you're doing, you'll come out fine and right out any attendant difficulties. But if you don't...
Tweet, tweet.
The current developer systems use a conventional BIOS, but Apple's engineers have said publicly that they have not yet decided on the final firmware. The developer guidelines exist to dissuade programmers from writing OF-dependent code.
From the comments Apple has made, they are looking at either OF or EFI in the final systems, with a slight preference for EFI.
Is Apple really calling this "OS Xi", or did we make that up? I realize the "i" stands for Intel, but I parse "Xi" as 11, in Roman numerals. I realize Roman numerals are uppercase, but it's still confusing. Not that I have a better idea.
a COMPUTER COMPANY!
They are like SGI in this regard. Doing both, under one roof, makes for an Apple Computer. If the two are seperate, then you have a personal computer that runs Apple software..
now back to the discussion
Blogging because I can...
I don't know much about OSX, but isn't kernel open source? How will they restrict modified kernels then?
Software Update call home one a month/week/day.
All Apple needs is a CPU ID and to create an index key with the CPU ID as a primary key for every machine they create.
When the machines call home, they refer a non matching CPU ID to a web page saying "Sorry. Buy a Mac instead"
Apple could care less about unconnected machines. Like who the hell runs unconnected?
Even the military mas machines on the internet. (They also have some on MIL net and never the twain will meet [or there'll be a court martial!] but they're not Macs.)
This is a non-issue for Apple.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Short version for the impatient: I found Apple SFF (Small Form Factor) hardware to be 60% as expensive as equivalent Intel-based SFF hardware when shopping for a computer at the beginning of this year.
At the beginning of the year, I was looking for a replacement web server. Rimbosity.com was running on a P-233 MMX that was loud, had no APM support, and using significant amounts of electricity. It was in a full tower box that I bought back in the day when I equated the size of my computer with the manliness of my geekdom.
So I was looking for something small, quiet, and low-powered, but not a laptop since I saw it a waste to pay for the extra expenses of a battery, integrated LCD or keyboard. And while I'm upgrading, I might as well have a processor in the Gigahertz range.
Looking through the catalogs of (usually Pentium-M based) machines, I found that I could have a sufficient barebones system starting at about $300. That's without factory system testing, hard disk, processor or RAM. Adding those in, you end up with prices starting around $900 and easily hitting four figures. I could get stuff for less, but it meant cutting features (e.g. going to 700MHz or slower processors).
While I was looking, Apple announced the Mini. Micro-sized. 85W max power usage. The fan only runs when under heavy CPU load, and with a low-hit webserver, that would be "almost never." Cost? $500. The equivalent feature set in the PC world would have been on the high end of the $900-$1000 range (and that's assuming a Pentium M at 1.2 GHz is as fast as a G4 at 1.2 GHz, which is dubious).
There were other benefits. I don't have to bother installing Linux; I got SSH + Apache + PHP + firewall right out of the box by just clicking a few checkboxes. I got iLife '05, which I immediately installed on my old iBook. It took me a whole 30 minutes to get it out of the box and set up, including all Apache configuration and putting the new web site on. And Apple has a default 1 year warranty whereas the pre-built Intel SFF's have only 90 day warranties and the barebones systems have no warranty.
There were downsides. I had to buy a USB-Keyboard/Mouse adapter for my old input devices (about $25), and a USB-Parallel adapter for the printer (about $30). The USB-Parallel adapter doesn't always work with my old Laserjet IIIP. And my ability to administer OSX from the command line pales in comparison to my Linux command line wizardry, so I had to learn how to do VNC over SSH.
But I don't see "learning new things" as a cost as much as a benefit, and the cost of the extra hardware is still much less than what I'd have to pay to have an Intel-based PC of any quality in that price range.
Going low-power + Small Form Factor (SFF) had a significant impact on our electric bills. The room is quiet now -- you can't hear the Mini's hard drive spinning unless you open the closet door, step on your tip-toes, and listen really carefully, whereas the old web server kept a nice fan din throughout the living room. And with the space we saved, the wife was able to put her sewing equipment (machines, thread and all) in the vacated closet space.
I could have had that with an Intel-based SFF PC, but I would have had to pay $350 more up front for the same features and spend more time getting the system up and running.
So not only is it not true that Apple is more expensive, Apple hardware can be much cheaper if you're comparing equivalent systems.
I don't know where you get off posting such authoritative info when you have nothing to back it up.
On top of that, you're wrong. You'll see.
Apple is not stupid. And they've already made their intentions plain. They will certainly use any means possible to lock their software to their hardware. If there is a TPM in there, they'll surely use it.
The only question left really in my mind is will they be successful? Copy protection doesn't usually succeed very well.
I give it two days before it get's cracked.
It *is* possible to overdo it! I for one have had enough . Please seed a story with some substance next time.
"They won't allow OS X to run on just about any PC"
:)
In the video I saw he said "enable", not "allow".
I don't know if this distinction is important but it does seem like a less "aggressive" term.
There have been "licensees".
There is a huge difference.
When IBM lost the clone battles Phoenix & everyone else were free to offer reverse-engineered work-alike PCs. Not just "mostly alike", just alike. Buy the same MS or whomever OS, install the same Lotus 123 or whathaveyou, it's all a commodity.
IBM later tried to recapture the market by redefining it with MicroChannel, their proprietary & well defended next-gen bus architecture. But the ISA market was too big and had enough momentum that IBM's efforts were doomed and look, 25 years later they're out of the PC market they helped create not having made a profit at it in years.
On the other hand Apple, after a few early skirmishes, never lost control of their products. Their architecture didn't lend itself to easy reengineering and there was rarely an eager alternative OS vender around to make non-MacOS boxes viable. Be, Yellow Dog, etc. never were more then novelties.
What Apple did do was, under contracted terms, sell their proprietary system ROMs & MacOS 7 to third parties for a licensing fee and per-unit compensation. The idea was that these nimbler & more aggressive partners would expand the Mac into markets Apple wasn't interested in or where it was unable to compete effectively (usually cost or distribution-wise).
However instead companies like Power Computing turned around and cannibalized Apple's domestic bread-&-butter Mac market by offering similar systems at price points slightly below Apples.
A few did expand the Mac into new markets - high-end multi-processor, etc. but by-and-large it was a financial disaster for Apple. They were already suffering from extremely poor supply chain management, a shrinking market, and high R&D costs; to then start supplying direct competitors with products that undercut their own was disastrous.
So when the opportunity arose with a new MacOS to change terms Apple did - they bought back their licenses and shut down the program. Most folks agree if they hadn't the company wouldn't have lasted another year.
What has changed since then? Not much.
Apple now does charge for their OS upgrades, but makes no effort to enforce this. They've leveraged their R&D by adopting more standard components, adopting & using some open source code & development, and now moving to Intel-associated motherboards & CPUs. But to date they make their profit on selling the hardware & the rest is mostly part of the package.
So, Mac-clones?
Probably not. Apple is unlike Wintel - they sell the hardware and the OS: There's no advantage to their opening either end to competition. Heck for protection they could build their OS so it does something as trivial as look for an Apple-encoded string in a system firmware and sue the bagoobers outta anyone who tries to fake that.
Beyond that Apple has a long history of innovating in fundamental ways. While the development boxes they're shipping out now may be based on plain-jane Intel tech there's no promises that substantial parts of the Mactels won't be something fresh 'n funky - clever memory architecture, bus design, whatever - intractable hardware/OS interactions that homers & cloners can't easily reverse-engineer.
Time will tell, but Apple, it's officers & engineers, aren't stoopid; they're likely not looking to start giving away their crown jewels and undercutting their fiduciary responsibility no matter how many geek fan-boys want MacOS X on their hopped up Athlon-with-fins box. Me, I'll be looking forward to buying a Mactel someday, and not giving a damn what's inside of it as long as it-just-works.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
How many n00bz actually believe this? It'd be pretty trivial to have a shutdown timer enable at system startup, then have the kernel call some non-Darwin code to disable the timer or change the interrupt vector to disable the shutdown. Replace this code with a vanilla Darwin and presto, machine shuts down 30secs after startup. Or you could have to do some challenge/response handshake with an onboard controller before you got to runlevel S. Lots of stuff that would be expensive to figure out and emulate, and with virtually everyone connected to the internet, who's to say they couldn't update the configuration occasionally?
Just junk food for thought...
This would be very easy to incorporate and would not only lock the OS but could work for iTunes/iMovie store and all sorts of other things.... http://www.infineon.com/cgi/ecrm.dll/ecrm/scripts/ prod_ov.jsp?oid=29049
I'm very familiar with the TPM spec and I don't see how it would be much help to Apple.
The usual concern with the TPM and "trusted computing" is that the hardware and OS can limit what software will run. This is an oversimplification but there are some valid concerns along these lines.
However, here we want to do the opposite: we want the software (Mac OSX) to limit what hardware it will run on. Hopefully readers can see that it is different for hardware to limit software than for software to limit hardware.
What does the TPM offer that Apple might be able to use? Well, as the articles state, the TPM does have some manufacturer ID information in it. Perhaps Apple motherboards could use a special TPM model or manufacturer number, and the software could look for that. But that's not really TPM specific. There are a number of chips on the boards which have manufacturer IDs in them that could be queried in the same way. There's nothing special about the TPM.
Also, each TPM has a unique crypto key burned in. But, assuming they follow the standard, the keys are random and essentially indistinguishable. Any computer with a TPM would look like any other. So this doesn't help either.
Conceivably we could combine these ideas, and have the manufacturer create a special crypto certificate on the TPM keys that were in Apple-compatible motherboards. This would be signed with a key that was only used for that purpose. Then this cert could be burned into BIOS or somewhere, and OS X could look for it. This is a roundabout method though and it's no more powerful than checking for manufacturer ID.
What you'd really want would be that Apple PCs would have some special crypto key in them that no other PCs had. Then this key could decrypt part of the OS and that way the OS wouldn't run on any computer that didn't have one of these chips. However, there's nothing in the TPM spec that works like this! There's no provision for a key to be shared across all the chips from a particular manufacturer. So that doesn't seem to work either.
All in all I think this is just some poorly-informed speculation that tries to tie together TPM technology with Apple's goals. But to me it doesn't look like a good match.
"Apple has a very narrow focus and their core market is creative professionals."
That is SO 1993!
Nice Troll...
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
Free Hans!
See Sega v Accolade (re: Sega Genesis) or Paradise (Hercules?) v IBM (re: VGA clones). Also the inkjet refill wars.
Copyright is meant to protect creative works. If you use a string as a key, it becomes functional, not creative and is not eligible for copyright protection.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Hey, it's all about the drivers, man. Apple doesn't want to have to support a zillion different drivers. And if they opened it up to white box generic PCs, they couldn't cost effectively support them all. And the moment that got out, they'd be unfavorably compared to MS who does support every device.
Consider that OSX driver support would approximate Linux driver support -- and for the same reasons!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I think it is an embarassment that the supposedly enlightened crowd suffer the bad reporting at the level it exists on slashdot. I am suprised slashdot isn't asking sites to take it down as a news source. It doesn't make sense.
/. title has been one thing, and the actual story is the INVERSE of the claim.
/.
Yes, it can be a link source, but not a news source.
Sometimes I see a google news article, which is an article, about an article, about an article, about an article, that you have to register to read. And in traditional chinese whispers, it starts as one thing, and it ends as another.
Many a time the
well done
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
One of my fears was that people would run OSX on generic PCs. The biggest part of the Mac 'experience' is the operating system. And I'm very happy that it will only run on Apple computers, not generic PCs. Let the PCs run Windows, and the Mac's run OSX - that's what it was designed for.
My other sig is crap too
tsssssssssss.....
Apple software sales :
500 m$ direct software sales
250 m$ bundled software sales (calculated as 5% of mac sales)
Apple software expenses :
350 m$ (caclulated as 60 % of total R&D of 489m$)
gross margin : more than 50%
that is to say,
_if_ apple on intel remains as attractive as apple on ppc and sells the same amounts,
apple could as well dump HW and become a software company in a _very_ profitable fashion.
hard facts in the 2004 annual report (page 62).
when does the crack come out?
Whatever Apple tries to do to keep their OS off other people's computers, they will fail. Someone has already set up a website to tackle the problem.
the masses (read: the geeks) have finally accepted Mac OS X as a competent operating system
As a geek, I would love it if the masses were also geeks, but that is not the case. As a developer who worked at a company that wrote a virtual desktop implementation for Mac OS X, we thought for sure that we would make tons of money off of Linux -> Mac OS X switchers, but our sales were, unfortunately, much lower than we expected.
So, while it seems obvious that Linux geeks would be flocking to Mac OS X, the ratio of *NIX geeks vs. numbers of normal users might be a lot smaller than you think...
Oh, and just to start a flame war, here's a Venn Diagram on why Mac OS X kick's Linux desktops' asses.
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
*if* this happens, then those of us who run other OS's in VMware for help desk support will be S.O.L. At least until the folks at VMware figure out a way to pass a virtual copy of that tag to the OS....
I personally have Mandrake, Syllable, Win98se and WinME installed in VMware here at home. I'd love to get a copy of Mac OS 9 or X as well, but lack the licence(s) to do so. If this is implemented, I won't be able to install OS.X will I?
It will also give headaches to those die hard Mac fans who want to try an upgrade older machines. Granted, there is a limit to how many generations you can keep upgrading to, but I do know several people who have upgraded from either 8 to 9 or 9 to 10.4. Encorporating this lockout option will mandate buying new hardware..../light dawns/ oh wait....
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
yay!
Apple needs to decide if they are a hardware company or a software company.
Almost all the other totally proprietary companies (with proprietary OSs on proprietary hardware) are dead and gone.
I think that the success of the OS/X platform has been because the OS simply works. The margins in hardware are so, so thin.
The only thing that I can see that would save Apple from Intel-induced death syndrome would be to totally adopt the Intel PC platform and get out of the PC hardware business.
Otherwise, they will follow many formerly great computer companies to be a footnote in computing history.
Ouch.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Perhaps Apple will allow/start/sponsor an open source project to bring OSX to all machines. If the communtiy can port the base, when it's in place they'll start producing binaries, when it's ready they will release it as an Apple product. Then never actually release OSX for regular x86 pcs (or even amd64 or intels equivalent) as there will always be too much variety to give the Apple seal of approval, while most people will be able to assemble or get a machine which will run it very well. It would improve very quickly and lots of people will run it, and many will go on to buy Apple (or licensed) hardware for their next purchase. In fact Apple could even arrange special supported editions for large manufacturers, supporting exact platforms, but only where it's worth their while (e.g. Sony want OSX for the PS4 or a Tivo-NG or a line of Tablets they could come in with the cash and money to make it worth Apple's while, the less expansion the easier/cheaper it is). If Apple go this route I could easily see the "Desktop" market becoming a 3 way race within 5 years with OSX and Linux combined matching Windows (and at that point the monopoly can be forgotten).
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
OS war? Does anyone else remember when Linux first came on the scene and everyone was predicting it would spell the end of Windows? In the end, the Linux community instead turned cannibalistic and went after its Unix cousins.
Linux was unable to displace M$ from certain markets because of the massive infrastructure invested by companies in acquiring, using, and supporting it. Everything from patch distribution, anti-virus software, productivity software, and more.
I've been a Apple user for more years than I can remember, but the notion of an OS war between M$ and Apple is pure fantasy. If Linux couldn't do it, how could Apple? Where is the battleground for this war? Even today, you see Apple HW/SW mostly in speciality communities (graphics, etc) and in the home. Those markets don't mean much compared to the multiple billions spent by corporations. Sounds like we're talking about no more than an OS skirmish in a far-flung corner of the world, at best.
People may respect Apple's innovation, just like many respect Porsche or Ferrari, but it doesn't mean any significant number of people will buy the product in question. That is, respect doesn't necessarily translate into people trading minivans for Ferraris, or XP for OS X.
Their "narrow focus" on creative professionals certainly explains why they've opened a hundred or so stores in malls everywhere, and why I see so many people at college (Georgia Tech -- an engineering school, no less!) walking around with them. I'm taking a java programming class this semester, and three out of four people in my group have Mac laptops (and no, we're not the only group in the class with Mac users). And if computer science students are included in your definition of "creative professionals", what isn't?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
they will no longer be able to hide behind the Megahertz "myth."
What myth?
Both AMD64 boxes and PPC 970s currently get at least comparable performance to Intel P4s running at a far higher clock speed.
Megahertz == performance has always been a myth.
http://www.boxedcpu.com/HW_P4_dsktp.htm
and as of 4.15pm 14 JUNE 05 the top of the line machine they had for sale, for a LOUSY $730 was:
Dell Dimension 8400
Pentium 4 / 3.2 gHz
512 MB RAM / 80 gig SATA HD
floppy drive / Modem / Ethernet
optical 1: 16x DVD +/- RW Drive
optical 2: 48x CDRW Drive
audio: soundblaster 24bit Audio card
video: 128 MB PCI-X ATI Radeon X300 video card
Windows XP Home Edition
Now, KINDLY EXPLAIN TO ME, where I can get a Macintosh that has all those features at that kind of horsepower for $730?
It sure as hell isn't a MiniMac...
don't get me wrong: I prefer Macintosh gear to PC gear any day of the week, but I have NO ILLUSION that I have paid and will continue to pay more for the experience.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Almost all the other totally proprietary companies (with proprietary OSs on proprietary hardware) are dead and gone.
Uh huh. As opposed to the companies who cast off the chains of their proprietary hardware and went on to flourish, like Be, Inc. and NeXT. Oh, wait...
I think that the success of the OS/X platform has been because the OS simply works.
And why do you think that is? Because it's written for a tiny pool of hardware, so it can be tied very, very tightly to that hardware to provide a superior user experience.
By contrast, Microsoft has to aim Windows at the lowest common denominator hardware and hope for the best. They've spent billions of dollars and two decades trying to get Windows to work as well as the Mac OS, and they still haven't done it-- e.g. When I flip my KVM back and forth between my G5 and my XP PC, my G5 never fails to recognize the perfectly functional Microsoft keyboard I use, but my PC frequently does. The G5 also picks up on the 'new' hardware much faster when I switch to it.
One of the reasons OSX is such a great, stable platform, especially when compared to windows, is that there exists a much smaller combination of machines to test on. With Windows, there is an unlimited number of configurations from a million different vendors. This is just one of many, many reasons Apple has so much success developing OSX.
Of course putting MacOS on generic Intel boxes would be waving a red flag in MS's face. It's always been a touchy love-hate relationship between the two companies.
As long as Apple has been a fringe market that MS could sell a few copies of Office to, then all is well.
If Apple starts seriously eating into it's Windows sales.... getting preinstalled on Dells or something. Then things would get nasty.
For the most part you cannot get Mac OS X to run on other PowerPC based systems, only Apple computers...
They could do the same thing with a DONGLE on the x86 platform...
Your Average Joe
Come on, they couldn't write secure code to save their life, too lazy and tools that promote laziness. Shit my favorite tool is a hammer and I can use it for everything, even to change the tire on your car. When I am done it does not look pretty but I got to use my favorite tool and did not have to learn anything new!
Your Average Joe
rewriting TDM to run in EFI or something is a waste of Apple's time
first off regarding some comments about cracking os x on intel, even if you could do it, why? would you feel comfortable operating a business on white boxen running a cracked version of os x? would your company feel confident that their core business apps are running on a pirated/hackz/warez version of os x in which only you, the company geek, can fix it? i think not. in the end, companies have to be responsible to themselves and the clients that they serve by running legit software. doesn't mean you can't try to do it at home for personal reasons, but for the most part this isn't going to fly in the corporate world... and before any linux-zealots flame about what business would need os x for their core business, think printing, audio, video, and other media venues.
proprietary os's are the rule, not the exception, especially in businesses, government, and other major infrastructure environments... military, banking, energy companies, research facilities, and schools are all running windows, solaris, aix, irix, as400,[fill in the blank for you favorite proprietary *nix-like os] along side linux and *bsd. os x is no different, and being proprietary doesn't weaken an os, it actually helps shorten it's dev cycle and patch cycles, such that os x has been able to release a major version almost every 12-18 months. sun is also able to make that claim from 2.4-10 for the last 7 years. windows on the other hand has a much longer cycle for dev and patches because of all the 3rd party hardware it tries to support.
TCO is also important, and apple, sun, sgi, ibm equipment in general(as well as other "proprietary" hardware) have better total cost of ownership than commodity hardware. plenty of graphic shops have ancient beige macs still running old software simply because it still works and does it's job well. conversely, there still alot of win95/98 boxes still running cause it still does it's job well... i've been thinking about whipping together some lite98 boxen running off a flash disk to run some utilites just cause it's cheaper and just as efficient(if not more so) than a newer machine running xp...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
about how long i give them before its cracked
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
iMacs, and iBooks are not allowed to have secondary displays except in mirror mode. Apple's official stance. What does it take to enable the external video port on many models that use a dual display capable chip so that more than just "mirror mode" is possible? Just a quick trip to OpenFirmware and change the settings on a few bits. Could Apple prevent this. Sure, a quick trip to system profiler says I am on an iMac G5 and my serial number is right there. (Heck by Pismo powerbook had my sales order number since it was a built to order machine.) All they'd have to do was check this at boot time and disable the dual display ability. Maybe even a "spank me" by assumming excessive power consuption and heat generation and just turning the fans on "high". Annoying but non lethal. But no, they don't do a thing because they don't like to annoy their customers. And their customers that do these things know it is unsupported. So if I ever do this (wink wink nudge nudge ... know what I mean, know what I mean) I'll be sure to remove it before servicing and hope that open firmware doesn't keep a log somewhere of these "bad" choices a naive user might make.
Remember iMacs and iBooks don't support dual displays, only mirror mode. Riiiigggghhhhttt!!!!
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
If you can make your own compiled kernel run (and you should!!), then what prevents you from deactivating that part, so you can run it on a PC?
The real secret will be in the video card drives.
All Intel macs will ship with a video card for which there are no Windows drivers. And OSX Intel will only provide drivers for this one video card. This particular video card will not be available on the open market, it will be an Apple only model, therefore, it will be difficult to get OSX Intel running on a PC clone. Of course, some people will find value in a headless PC running OS/X but that won't make a dent in Apple's sales.
The other way this could be done, is that Apple uses a top-of-the line video card. The manufacturer sells them to Apple at cost plus 2%. The same video card on the open market is sold at cost plus 500% because it is top of the line. It will be cheaper to buy the Intel Mac than to buy a clone PC and the top-of-the-line video card.
It's a dessert topping. It's a floor wax. It's a dessert topping, you cow!
Recent postings that Apple will use drm or trusted computing to make sure osx only runs on apple made hardware, actually make a lot of sense. One only has to look at OSX as 'just another' piece of content. A very creative & moving piece of content. Almost (or just) like a play or a movie. When Apple trusts its own crownjewel to the power of DRM & Steve Jobs is firmly the content-creation business himself, isn't that the most compelling case for feet-dragging majors to open the floodgates of content? On Apple? Major move!
The chip may not be breakable... but the OSes method of protection certainly will be.