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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.
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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...?
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
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.
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.
Maybe you didn't read the previous article. It clearly argues that Apple will benefit from allowing piracy now, with the development version, and then locking down the OS with later versions. In other words, when they release their own hardware, which is what this article discusses.
Tell me you didn't read either article, but felt qualified to snipe. You did write a post referring to both, FortKnox...
Just because a post refers to another Slashdot article, and criticizes an editor, doesn't mean it's insightful.
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.
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 expect to see something similar.. a copyright string in the PC BIOS. Were Dell, Gateway, whatever to write this string in their BIOS, Apple would have no end to the possible lawsuits it would open up.
AH, but what if the manufacturers incorporated a user-customizable string in the BIOS much like the "asset tag" settings we have now?
Trolling is a art,
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})"
Apple is a software company who makes money off their hardware.
Yet one key aspect of that "interface" is the scroll wheel, which is hardware, just as one key aspect of the original Macintosh GUI is the hardware mouse. I find these hardware versus software arguments silly, because to me Apple is a company that is able to solve problems either in hardware or software. Therefore they are both.
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.
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.
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.