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Mac OS X Running on Non-Apple Hardware
MacBeliever writes "Inevitably, Mac OS X for x86 has been hacked to run on a non-Apple PC. Is this the beginning of the fulfillment of the Dvorak prophecy?" RetrogradeMotion also writes "The OSx86 Project has posted a how-to guide telling how to run OS X on any Windows or Linux-based PC using VMWare." Not 100% corroborated, so ingest with salt.
Seriously. The largest barrier for adoption of OSX has been the high cost of entry (ie buying Mac hardware). This has been slightly reduced with the Mac Mini, but now people can try out OSX without even having to buy new hardware.
Mac OS will only run on non-Mac hardware if there's drivers available for that non-Mac hardware. If say.. nVidia decides not to make a driver for their latest PC Card to run on MacOS.. then you're screwed. I'd rather stick to Linux (cuz methinks it would have better support than Mac OS running on non-Mac approved hardware).
_Vishal www.squad9.com
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, SWEET FUCKING CHRIST!!
Can we postpone these stories until the production runs of both the boxes and OS X comes out? Please? All these stories in the past few weeks have read like the following and have steadily decreased in poster IQ:
Apple: Wild speculation abounds on developer-only releases of software, hardware OMGWTF
Apple: Apple may/may not use DRM, based on developer-only releases of software and hardware OMGWTF!!!1
Apple: Teh interface is pretyOMGWTF!!!!!11eleventyone
Anonymous Coward writes: i am LOVE MY MACCY from BITTTORRRENT!!! I kissed it becos it tastES LIKE CANDY!!
Calm down, people. I'm not saying these things will or won't come to pass, but everybody assuming that a developer-only release will be anything like its comparable production release -- not to mention one that won't be available for a year -- is silly.
Disclaimer: Mac user at home.
People like Mercedes, BMW, Volvo etc sell cars at a premium because they are good quality and have nice design. In fact I bought an older Volvo precisely for that reason. It was a quality vehicle with the luxury and safety I would expect from the manufacturer. Apple is the same. Yes, may be you could run OS-X on a cheap clone PC, or one made of bits, but I bought Apple after years of such machines, because I wanted a quality machine with nice design and nice construction. Anyone who thinks this will hurt Apple's sales to a great extent is sadly mistaken.
Not impossible, but it would be a tricky transition for them.
Apple charges a very very large markup on their hardware, I don't think the margin on their software would be nearly as high.
Beyond that, one of the advantages of them controlling hardware and software is the fact that they can do more rigorous quality control, because they KNOW the configuration your machine will be running. This leads to the disadvantage of having a limited and more costly hardware base, but that is why Apple products "just work".
Personally, I think moving Mac OS to mainstream machines with unpredictable hardware would dramatically lower the quality of the software, and I would hate to see that. I would much rather have an Apple piece of hardware that I know was tested well with the operating system on it.
I suppose that viewpoint will put me in the minority here.
1. Apple would have to support a massively larger amount of hardware. 2. there would be a loss of branding and a lowering of the quality associated with OS X. 3. there are plenty of games on the Mac, but if you want the very latest cutting-edge PC games you'd never be satisfied anyway since you'd need ATI/nVidia making their latest cards in Mac versions too. 4. if you DO want games, why do you want a Mac? if Windows works, use it. 5. what is happening to the PC game industry? is it growing/shrinking? will PC games be so important when the latest generation consoles are out? 6. given PC games makers moves to absurd copy-protection methods (drivers), will either the makers or Apple allow the other to do what they want to "secure" the computers?
Actually, this story is pretty well-established: hard-to-fake handheld videos of systems cold-booting into OS X, screenshots, torrents, reports from all around that installation is tricky but it works...
It was speculation last week then there were a handful of sketchy screenshots taken in VMWare floating around. Now I'd say it's pretty much fact that it's working at some level.
Pardon my ignorance, but isn't running OS X on an emulated PC using VMWare a totally different thing from actually installing it on the PC? Plus, weren't we told that the current dev kits didn't have the mac-only protection built into them yet?
Apple are a hardware company. They make a lot of money selling hardware. Selling computers that are capable of running Mac OS X and Windows is probably going to make them even more money as lots of people who are currently buying Dells will opt for the more flexible vendor instead.
Why would they throw away that in order to become a software company, when being a hardware company is working so well for them? Apple have gone from strength to strength in the last few years, it would be madness to completely change the direction of the company now.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
... say, "fulfillment of the Dvorak prophecy." The last thing his ego needs is for /.'ers to agree with him ;)
Bark less. Wag more.
Aside from that, I really don't think Apple cares about the gaming market segment, i.e., teenaged-or-twenty-something males.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Once a PC user, always a PC user. After years of careful study, it is now known that while one's personality may determine his or her choice of OS, the reverse is never the case. In other words, nothing can rob these happy souls of their superior creativity, intellect, and style--but then neither, alas, can anything be done to rescue people like these from eternal virginity. No matter how much time they spend in Mac OS X, Darwin, FreeBSD, or Pianos, they are doomed to live as shadows among men. The more fortunate among us should mourn them--for theirs, truly, are the lives of the never-been. It is nature's cruel will.
Well, take this only as my assumption, but Apple would likely charge the same amount as Microsoft for their OS -- if not more (which I'm sure Jobs could justify with his pretty marketing spin) -- if/when they release OS X for open x86 hardware.
Will Apple do such? I don't think many people have any point of reference to make an educated guess about that. They certainly would not sell OS X to the mass market for $129 though.
A B A C A B B
If I remember correctly, the developer Intel Macs didn't ship with iLife. I'd be interesting to install them anyway and see what happens.
You'd have to be a masochist to run Final Cut Pro on Rosetta. Thank you sir may I have another!
Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands?
No. To paraphrase Douglas Adams "Apple may only have 10% of the computer market, but its definitely the top 10%".
Would it benefit Ferrari in the long run to have every ghetto curb filled with Ferrari's?
In looking at the demo movies, it was impressive to some degree to see OS X running on a cheap Windows PC. But looking more closely, I noticed that the image appeared stretched. I saw that yucky BIOS black screen with white text. However, it looked close to a regular Mac experience.
This leads to the disadvantage of having a limited and more costly hardware base, but that is why Apple products "just work".
Why does knowing your hardware make the hardware more expensive?
It seems to me that the reason Apple hardware is more expensive is that only Apple makes Apple hardware. If there were some competition they would become cheaper. I think it might be safe to say Apple also tests their hardware but I doubt they test it anymore than Asus, Intel, AMD, MSI, or whatever. So most of the quality control goes into software. But then do they test it anymore than Adobe or Macromedia or what have you? They have a very limited set of hardware to test on as opposed to those companies who test their software on lots of different hardware. So that means they have actually less testing to do. And since they know the hardware (as they made it) they can optimize. So hardware is more expensive because of lack of competition, software is less expensive because of less testing.
So you are paying for a complete experience. Which I can get from Dell or something similar. So you are paying for what exactly?
If any of this is wrong let me know. I like Apple, but the only reason I see it as more expensive is because there is a subset of the population that is willing to pay for "more expensive".
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
I think Apple wants people to pirate it. And the reason is this:
Only the people with technical know-how will pirate it. They will start to use it and love it. They will tell all their friends to get it, and that means buying Apple hardware.
Apple is neither a hardware company nor a software company. What Apple sells is user experiences. Apple users don't buy a computer, or a piece of software, they buy an integrated product that lets them get the things done that they want to get done ("It Just Works"(TM)). Both the hardware and the software are integral pieces of that product, and neither is complete without the other.
You're willing to put up with the sucky OS that is Windows the rest of the time you're using your computer (i.e., when you're not playing games) just so you can play games?
;) I put up with the sucky Windows machine while playing games. As soon as the game is over, I hit the input switch on the monitor to go back to my "real" desktop :)
I prefer my approach to the problem
(Though I'll admit that dual-desktops isn't practical for most people, and that I have way too many computers)
Apple charges a very very large markup on their hardware, I don't think the margin on their software would be nearly as high.
Why?
People are screaming for an alternate OS to run on commodity hardware. OSS isn't quite there yet. Apple's market share would skyrocket if Dell were able to offer their customers "Dual Boot Apple OSX when your Windows partition becomes too virus infected". Even if they only charged $50 a copy, it wouldn't take a significant percentage of x86 OSX dual-boot to more than make up for their hardware revenue and margin.
Personally, I think moving Mac OS to mainstream machines with unpredictable hardware would dramatically lower the quality of the software, and I would hate to see that.
If Apple can get the stability of Microsoft's Windows XP product (joke all that you want, it is rock solid on good hardware) with their innovative interface, then what isn't to like? If you don't want to run it on cheap hardware, then I'm sure that they'll be happy to sell you their expensive stuff, too.
I just don't get it.
Actually, I do get it. Apple *is* planning on releasing their OS for commodity hardware, they just want to keep the Mac zealots in denial for as long as possible.
More
Yeah, the hardware support is the killer, and why they won't do it. Where would all the drivers for all the obsolete hardware out there come from? Just getting it to boot on most 3-year old systems would mean having to write tens of thousands of drivers. Not gonna happen.
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
That analogy has been abused for years. While it's true that Apple hardware is higher in quality than a lot of no-name Taiwanese stuff, it's not much different from what HP and Dell would sell you in their mid- and high-end ranges.
The reasons I see for Apple hardware being more expensive are:
1) Lower volumes in manufacturing not allowing the economies of scale that a company like Dell can get.
2) Without direct competition (as in no other vendors making Macs), Apple can charge what they want and people will pay it.
And finally, about the hardware company vs. software company: one point I haven't seen mentioned is that when selling only software a company is bound to suffer some losses from piracy. But when it comes to hardware, people who want the product have no choice but to buy it. Can't exactly burn a copy of an iPod to CD...
As far as desktops go, apple intel boxes won't be some awesome reliable apple only ordeal. The truth is you'll buy able to buy that same intel mobo/cpu , graphics card, hard drive, etc all from newegg/monarch/zff/etc. So when you pay a premium for the "awesome reliable great" apple hardware, you're just going to be paying a premium for the stuff you could've ordered yourself to make your own computer for much cheaper. Well that and the nice case.
As far as notebooks go I think the T series is one awesome example of great non apple design. And I infact will purchase a next gen T series over a powerbook if it is not as thin/light/well built.
So really all you'll be gettin for paying the premium on intel apple hardware is a nice case and not much else.
Apple have approximately 20% margins on hardware. This is quite high for the computer hardware industry. I imagine that these margins will drop a bit after they transition to x86 so people are not able to compare a Mac to a Dell with identical specs and see a hugely overpriced Mac. In contrast, any copy of OS X sold to someone who would otherwise have used Linux or Windows is 100% profit (well, minus the negligible cost of the DVD, box and manual).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
But, on my x86, I can choose any ATI Card or Nvidia card and I most certainly will not have XP update issues.
Apple "controlling" their hardware market is unfortunately limiting your choices for no good reason.
I honestly think they can and should do this, with some caveats.
Everyone talks about how their hardware profit margins are high. This is true, but on the other side the marginal cost of more copies of the OS are pretty near null. The worry that people would have bought a mac otherwise could be assuaged in several ways, however. If it can be done in a way that leaves people that would have bought mac hardware, still buying mac hardware, but other people that would not have done this running Mac OS on non-apple hardware, this would be a big win for Apple (with a few caveats.) Those extra sales of the OS are nearly 100% profit, after all, and that profit can be turned around and used to keep Apples own computers on the cutting edge. More people running the OS, regardless of the hardware they use, also means more people developing for it. And once you get a developer to give ObjC and Cocoa a try, he's not likely to want to go back to win32. So that would be a big win too. But you have to find a way to do it without killing Apples hardware sales (unless they decided to take the dive and become a software company, something I don't see happening.)
Now the other big objection is limiting the hardware they have to program for. It's a lot easier for Apple to make things work when they control the hardware, and can limit the number of devices and machine configurations they have to deal with enormously. If they released OSX on the Wintel PC market, there is a serious and reasonable worry that they would quickly be swamped with a support nightmare that would kill them, or at the least kill their reputation.
Now, with all this said, what I would probably do in their shoes would be to *NOT* use any DRM tie-ins and make it quite easy for people to run OSX on non-Apple boxes, but also *NOT* officially support this practice in any way. I'd throw up a warning screen on boot if the OS is running on non-Apple hardware, with a big flashing warning that something is wrong with the hardware and the user should NOT continue, but instead take their machine to the store, blah blah. But go ahead and leave a button for the user to continue anyway. This way they're not on the hook for support, they don't have to write a bunch of new drivers, etc. BUT people that would never have bought an Apple otherwise will still find it relatively easy to put it on their existing machine and give it a try. I predict most will like it, and buy proper Apple hardware the next time they have money to spend on a computer.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
OSX offers no compelling advantages, and many disadvantages, as a platform to game developers. Apple has neglected or actively discouraged game developers over a long period of time -- starting with a refusal to produce a joystick standard (so there is still no standard joystick interface after 20 years) through refusing to enable low res graphics back in the early 90s when every hit game (Doom, etc.) relied on them to achieve acceptable frame rates.
Apple's current initiative is actually probably the best move they could make vis-a-vis games.
Currently, a typical Mac gamer owns a PC to play games on. In my case, I upgrade my PC more frequently than my Mac, even though I use my Mac for *paying work*, and the only reason is game performance. Apple can capture a chunk of this money by producing computers that run their OS and the games I want to play.
Whether I have to reboot into Windows or run in a compatibility box, I'd rather upgrade one computer every twelve-eighteen months than upgrade my PC twice and my Mac one every two years.
If Apple released OSX for random PC boxes it would instantly lose its hardware margin, and it might never get significant volume on software. And, frankly, Apple's hardware innovations are as important as its software innovations -- would you like to see Apple out of the hardware market?
Considering that you admit to "pirating" the OS, your scenario, I'm guessing, should be revised as follows.
Your parents, your grandparents, your aunts, and the entire within-two-branchings of your family tree all buy a Mac OS-compatible machine on your recommendation and use your pirated copy of the OS.
Result: Apple goes out of business just like Be.
blog
???
Microsoft? World's richest guy as the owner?
Software has a fixed cost of creation. You make your money in volume!
Beyond that, one of the advantages of them controlling hardware and software is the fact that they can do more rigorous quality control, because they KNOW the configuration your machine will be running. This leads to the disadvantage of having a limited and more costly hardware base, but that is why Apple products "just work".
Agreed... but it would be entirely possible to only provide support for "approved" hardware.
Agile Artisans
1. OSX86 as shipped will not install on a non-Apple PC, and the license agreement will limit its use to Apple hardware.
2. Within a few weeks, a program along the lines of XPostFacto will be available to install OSX86 on generic Intel-compatible hardware. A new version will be required for every major OS X system update.
3. Apple will add "call-home" registration and serial numbering to insure that each copy of OSX will run on only a single computer. The protection will be cracked, but will be restored (and need to be re-cracked) with every system update.
4. People with non-Apple hardware who call up Apple seeking OS X support will get a standard reply: "Buy a real Mac, it will run OS X without any problems, and it can run Windows, too!"
5. Hackers will run OS X on generic hardware. Anybody who wants to do anything serious with it will buy a Mac.
oh the beloved car analogy, which still doesn't fit, nor has it ever fit. the standard response: all roads support just about any car. the same is not true for software: not all software supports every computer.
and so, the point of this response is this: apple DOES need to improve it's marketshare if it wishes to move out of its niche market. which i'm certain apple's investors would be happy about.
i think the incessant droning of all of us /.ers about getting Mac OS X on our own hardware is because we agree with you: we see the enthusiasm that Apple puts forth, and we want to be a part of it. We just can't afford the commodity hardware.
Microsoft would never allow Dell or any of the other major manufacturers to sell their boxes with an Apple OS.
They give Dell, et al, huge discounts on Windows, which I'm sure would disappear the moment Dell started considering an alternative OS. Dell wouldn't be willing to risk the majority of its sales on the off chance of this new alternative OS taking off.
And I'll restate the point others have made: Apple's superiority in terms of user experience is directly attributable to the tight integration between and control of the hardware. There are far less hardware configurations in any Apple system than a commodity x86 box. Go look for Mac video cards and you'll see what I mean. Apple would be gambling with their one real advantage if they actually marketed their OS for commodity hardware, as opposed to just letting a few hackers here and there play with it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
No...you already admit to pirating the OS and building the PCs. I'm not sure how you can recommend buying stock PCs if you build them...but...whatever. It's a lot more likely that it goes like this:
Next month your parents decide they want to upgrade their PC and come to you for advice (because you built their last PC). You tell them to order OS X compatible parts, and you install your pirated copy of the OS on the machine after you build it. Apple gains market share and makes no money.
Your grandfather, a year later, decides to upgrade his PC. He comes to you for advice because you built his last PC. You tell him he should run OS X. He talks to your parents, they tell him they love their OS X compatible PC. He orders OS X compatible parts, and you build the machine and install your pirated copy of OS X. Apple gains market share and makes no money.
Soon your aunt wants to upgrade, repeat above story. Market share continues to grow, but people aren't actually purchasing any Apple products. Rinse and repeat for your entire family. I doubt you build your friend's computers, but if you do...or your friends are similar to you (i.e. technically savy and have copies of OS X) rinse and repeat for them. In 5 years listen to all of the "Apple is DYING" trolls on slashdot because Apple is a hardware company and isn't selling any hardware. In 10 years your son asks you, "What is Apple?" and you tell him, "Oh we're running the last version of their OS on our Dell. Great company, too bad they went under."
This is an excellent point. I've stated before that I think it's also the reason why we've never had to deal with serialization or activation in the Mac OS until this point.
Apple knows that you can take a OS X install DVD and pop it into as many computers as you want and pirate like hell, but they've never chosen to do anything about it. Why? Because you can only install it on Apple computers, so they know they've made some money off of you anyway.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Windows supports all that stuff, and arguably that's what eats up all of their development time. Apple releases most of their machines will pretty much all the hardware you need already installed, so you don't need to check for hardware upon install. Heck, I'm sure you've noticed that the past couple revisions have come out with minimum requirements being based on the hardware abilities, not clock speed. "Do you have built-in Firewire? How about USB?"
With x86 computers, you can install on old hardware with mostly random parts. Cheap old NICs, old mainboards with various odds and ends built in (or not). Who's going to support all of that? Apple, despite their resources, would rather spend timem and effort supporting their own hardware accurately. So the job falls to those manufacturers and 3rd party companies. That stuff isn't going to be built into the OS, so how are people going to install it on random, commodity hardware?
To me, the joy of OS X is that it recognizes everything in the box from the very beginning, and I don't need to open the case for anything if I don't want to. It really is a bundled product to me, and that's why I like it. Buying the OS as a piece of software and then fandangling hardware together in hopes that it'll have the drivers in the OS? That doesn't seem appealing to me, who wants a computer to just work. I got sick of building my own years ago.
Compile aqua without optimizations.
It'd be far harder for a hacker to find a way to optimize the binary than change some constant.
Or it could backfire horribly, like the "experiment" with clones/CHRP did: Apple's overall market share didn't change, but users who previously had bought Apple hardware migrated to Power Computing and Motorola and UMax boxes, giving Apple only a licensing fee instead of the 20% margin they previously did.
If Mac OS ran on commodity hardware, perhaps they'd pick up a few disgruntled Windows users, and Linux users who want something easier to use, but I suspect any positive movement would be greatly offset by the number of current Mac users who would switch to cheaper hardware and deny Apple profit.
I'm sure there are some potential Mac users waiting in the wings, held off by the high cost of Apple hardware, but this is not a market that I suspect Apple really cares about. Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel because they wanted to get faster processors into their current lineup and maintain and increase the number of people buying Apple boxes, not decimate their hardware division's sales overnight.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Apple marketing owns you, d00d. It is a corporation and does not have feelings, except maybe the feelings of Steve Jobs. The company's purpose is to maximize profit by any means necessary, and their rational decision making settled on the move to Intel to cement Apple's place as the Porsche of the computer world, not to make it some kind of egalitarian, warm and fuzzy place where nothing gets done and no one works because everyone is happy.
Apple is a brand that is based on quality. What you're advocating is running the brand through the mud, exactly what the company doesn't want.
Not supporting things is sure-fire way for customer support to decline.
Supporting things that cause it to run like crap is a sure-fire way for customer support to decline.
Apple can only, and should only, release OS X on their own hardware, where the quality of user experience is assured.
This is what will happen.
nobody but VMWare is allowed to do such a comparison, without being sued
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ATDT1324356
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At $50 a copy, Apple would need to sell 35 million copies a year to match their current Mac profits.
Currently they sell something like 5 million Macs a year.
I don't see a sevenfold increase in market share as likely, especially since Microsoft can cut prices at any time. If people aren't willing to pay more for Macs, why are you so sure they'd be willing to pay more for OS X?
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
We all know that a Radeon 9600 for mac last much longer than its PC equivalent. Also mac memory modules are so different from the PC hardware. Apple's airport extreme cards with a broadcom chipset are much better than a linksys card with the same chipset. Did I talk about apple's SATA drives from Maxtor/Segate/An_Other_PC_Hardware_Maker?
C'mon mac uses PC hardware except the case, the motherboard and the CPU (those last two are going to be the same in a few years anyways).
Your speech is so 80s.
So you are paying for a complete experience. Which I can get from Dell or something similar.
/. readers can take it from here...
Yeah, I love the full Dell experience. You send them money, then weeks later you get a laptop which comes complete with:
1. A battery which breaks within 3 weeks.
2. A CDROM drive with a dodgy eject button and requires a "right click -> eject".
3. Keyboard marks rubbed onto the screen.
4. A floppy drive which goes out of alignment after you first use it (two weeks after the warrantee ran out, because you don't use floppies that much). They demand money.
5. A trackpad/nipple which have you chanting, "The power of Christ compels you!..."
6. Flimsy build.
7. Poor performance (compared against other x86).
8. Non English speaking support, once they actually answer the phone.
9. An OS made by someone else, with drivers made by yet some other people again. Install media if you are lucky. Roll-your-own if you are not.
11. Anti virus software which takes the performance down by about one hundred annoyance notches. Only to be bothered for money 3 months later.
12. Lots of half baked software which is designed to get you to "upgrade to the pro version which actually works" with yet more money.
13. One hundred and fifty three billion different services installed and set to run by default, with a systray that goes half way across the screen when maximized.
14. A system which could come with any combination of a number of different parts. SOE hell.
15. A lesson in appreciation of quality over barrel bottom scraping "value".
16. I'm sure other
I support lots of Dells. The desktops... work. But the laptops are not built well enough to be used as laptops in my opinion.
My *opinion* is, that there never has been a Dell laptop which could compare with an Apple Powerbook for build quality or overall system quality. The overall Apple experience is nice. I could never say that about Dell. BTW, I say all this typing from a Sony VAIO.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
There are plenty of reasons to switch to OS X but customers are going to have to choose between a lot of little reasons and perhaps a few moderately important reasons to switch and one big huge whopper of a reason not to.. Such is the power of monopoly lock-in.. I know we all know that at some level but it's such a fundamental assumption that it becomes easy to lose track of the fact that it's not just a law of nature.
2 out of 3 of those games are availible for Mac. The OS X port of World of Warcraft is quite nice...level 24 Tauren Hunter myself...;)
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
This would be true except for a couple of things. First of all, the typical Mac user is probably going to just buy Apple hardware for their next computer. You are going to tell your aunt that you will build her a computer and she is going to tell you that she wants the new florecent purple sparkley Intel iMac Thingy.
You will raise an eyebrow as you know that there is really little practical value in the florecent purple sparklies, but, you have to admit that they do look kind of nifty (though you would never say so out loud, or on slashdot, unless it was as an anonymous coward...)
And, Apple is better at selling branded hardware too. Like, don't you want Wireless Access point that Apple designed? Well, your aunt does because she knows that it will "just work" with her computer. Same thing with printers, MP3 players, scanners, and everything else. And Apple is actually pretty good at Marketing whe n they have a good product.
They just have some trouble because of the nature of the market to favor the company with the largest market share.
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
To me, the joy of OS X is that it recognizes everything in the box from the very beginning, and I don't need to open the case for anything if I don't want to.
The same is true of any competant Intel laptop, pretty much. It's certainly true of Thinkpads, and they're better as laptops than any of Apple's 'books as well.
So why am I considering an iBook, even though I hate the 'books?
Because the Joy of OSX is that the software just works. I went through hell getting OSX up in the first place, on a 7500 with third party upgrades and open source patches and XPostFacto to tweak the boot CD. Cheap old NIC, old mainboards with ADB and no USB, no Firewire, no IDE, no DVI, no Altivec, no GPU. But once it was up it was still a joy. Slow, and I wouldn't want to go back to it now... but it worked.
And if it meant I could get OSX on a Thinkpad, and I had to pay Apple the Mac Tax on an iBook in cash, so OSX by itself cost something like $400... I'd still do it. Because OSX is worth it to me.
But I'm not downloading the torrent and cracking OSX and installing it on the sly.
Come on, Apple, get a clue... you can have your cake and eat it too.