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.

Comments

Random thoughts on Apple

[bigwavejas]

Ok I'm naïve on the politics of this, so my post is more of a question than a answer. I know this is an argument that has gone back and forth, but here goes again...

Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands? Sure, it might detract from them selling hardware (short term), but I can honestly say for me (average Joe) I've never purchased a Mac because they simply don't have the software titles I'm interested in and Windows does. I mean sure, they've got great stuff, but they lack in GAMES, yes games... I've said it, gotten it out. I'm a gamer and so are all of my friends. I'd venture to say a good chunk of those purchasing PC's are in the same group as me (surf the web and play games). So if the Apple OS became more popular, wouldn't more developers consider making a version of their game in the Apple OS flavor?

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Radres]

Ya' know, it's not unlike Steve Jobbs to say one thing and then end up turning around and doing the exact opposite, perhaps with the intent of throwing off his enemies. I can't find the sources right now and get a top post, but as an example, he specifically said that there would never be an iPod cell phone, and a few weeks later there was talk of one. Doesn't surprise me one bit that Apple is taking their OS which is vastly superior to Windows and trying to take on that huge market.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[DaggertipX]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

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?

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Bogtha]

Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands?

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[pauljlucas]

I've never purchased a Mac because they ... lack in GAMES

I've never understood this argument. 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? If you're that into games, why don't you just get a dedicated game machine, e.g., PS2, Xbox, etc., for games and a Mac to do the rest of your stuff?

Aside from that, I really don't think Apple cares about the gaming market segment, i.e., teenaged-or-twenty-something males.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Yocto Yotta]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[hackstraw]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[pootypeople]

At least with regards to video, they're not working on *known* hardware as much anymore--you can get plenty of add-on video boards. They don't have to deal with processor/motherboard combinations they are unfamiliar with, but even that shouldn't give them that much trouble. Everyone makes a big deal about apple's "control" of hardware and how "good" their hardware is... Okay- I've owned both and my macs have lasted longer; however, there are reasons.

My orginal Mac Plus would not be running today if I hadn't bought an additional fan to cool the power supply--alot of Mac Pluses had this problem.

My Power Mac 6100 blew up a week after the warranty ran out- Apple was nice enough to fix it.

I've had one PC stop working on me- the rest have been retired so quickly they didn't get to die.

The one thing I will say for my macs--they lasted longer. Not longer as in "they were more reliable" but as in "the software didn't get so slow on older hardware it was unusable." That, and I don't remember the old "six months and your computer acts like it's geriatric" thing that windows does so well. I want mac os x... but have nothing but an sse only machine. Gotta go buy a P4 i guess..
james

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[mini me]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[GileadGreene]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Octorian]

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 prefer my approach to the problem ;) 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 :)

(Though I'll admit that dual-desktops isn't practical for most people, and that I have way too many computers)

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[dsginter]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[gcondon]

Perhaps Apple doesn't want to change into a software company.

Perhaps they like building computers and maybe, just maybe, their legions of aficionados would like them to continue doing so.

In my opinion, the most significant characteristic of Apple, as a company and a culture, is that they clearly love computers and it shows in everything they build - hardware and software.

Very few other technology companies exhibit this same exuberance that has been an Apple hallmark for many years (esp. under the leadership of the norotiously persnickety Steve Jobs).

I rarely walk away from using a Microsoft product thinking that this was created by someone who loves computers as much as I do.

Not every company needs to (or should) try to maximize sales and market penetration like Microsoft - just like every person doesn't need to try to be as rich as Bill Gates, as musical as Mozart, as tall as Shaq, etc.

Is it inconceivable that Apple might have success criteria that are different from Microsoft? Is it impossible that we, as users, can understand and embrace that kind of diversity of thought in the marketplace?

Hey you, Ferrari - why aren't you selling as many cars as Toyota? Slackers!

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[EvilNight]

All of the arguments about being primarily a hardware company aside, I keep seeing people saying that "Apple will have to support 100s of different kinds of hardware products" if they move to standard Intel architecture.

That's bullshit. Apple doesn't have to support anything. They can pick five of each kind of hardware if they want, or none. Look at Solaris-Intel, for example... supports very little of the hardware out there, but folks still use it. There's plenty of PC hardware out there that Linux can't use, and plenty more that it can only use in a rudimentary sense. People would simply have to be more careful about what hardware they buy if they wanted a supported Intel platform for MacOS.

It'd be up to the hardware vendors to match Apple's specs and get the support, just like with Linux and Solaris. Microsoft seems to be the only company making an OS that'll use any junk circuit board with a driver file regardless of quality. Don't make the mistake of assuming Microsoft's way is the only way.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Deep Fried Geekboy]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Maserati]

Just to be politically incorrect for a moment....

Would it benefit Ferrari in the long run to have every ghetto curb filled with Ferrari's?

It seems to be working for BMW and Mercedes :-)

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Fussen]

I totally agree. Fake wood inlays on the dashboard are critical to the overall functioning of the vehicle.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[TheRaven64]

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).

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Kaa]

If you're that into games, why don't you just get a dedicated game machine, e.g., PS2, Xbox, etc., for games and a Mac to do the rest of your stuff?

I am not the original poster, but games you play on a PC are very different from the ones you play on consoles. If you like MMORPGs (e.g. World of Warcraft), FPSs (e.g. Unreal), RTSs (e.g. Rome: Total War) then having a console does not help you at all.

As for the "rest of your stuff" it very much depends on what kind of stuff this is. For my purposes I am quite happy to have a Windows machine as a gaming/Photoshop/MSOffice box and a Linux machine for heavy lifting. No need for a Mac.

Aside from that, I really don't think Apple cares about the gaming market segment, i.e., teenaged-or-twenty-something males.

The gaming segment by now includes 30-something males and I bet the 20-40 year old demographic has Apple marketers drooling.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[relentless1914]

Not only that, but we have to remember how rampant piracy would be. To be honest, I think that if given the choice, very few people outside of Apple's core markets would purchase their hardware if they knew they could go to walmart and buy a $299 computer and download OSX from the internet for free. 1. The OS doesn't cost enough for them to recoup the R&D dollars they put into it. 2. If they raise the price, many people will just pirate it, (which of course many people will do anyway) The truth is that Apple has got to STAY in the hardware business if they want to stay in business.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Arker]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[MisterSquid]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[pete_townshend]

Nope, it's a little known fact, but in addition to the Reality Distortion Field, Jobs also emits particles of pure hate, materialized into existence by his loathing of ambient noise and ginormous ego. These particles, called "hatrons", produce a sort of white noise effect when interacting with Apple-brand computers and make them run quite silently.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[bfree]

Your so close to what I was going to say, and saying expressing it better then I was going to!

If I was Steve Jobs :-P I would start OpenOSX which would be a bit like OpenSolaris, i.e. where they feel they have to it would be binary only, but wherever they can it is Open. Now everyone can run an OSX on their cpu compatible box (you could keep pre-Intel mac owners happy this way also). To get the real OSX though, with support, you have to buy OSX hardware, which for now means Apple. I would expect that Apple would do deals as and when they felt it was in their best interests to provide an OSX-OEM version for manufacturers.

The sneeky way to get real revenues from those OpenOSX users would be to basically let buy and install a real OSX, but it is unsupported unless it's installed onto an Apple box! Don't cripple their experience in any way. How many people would still buy a copy of OSX to run on their Dell even if it came with no official support? Let OEMs sell their OSX discs to anyone, and let those discs also install anywhere ... but without support :-) Still keep it locked in some way to one copy per machine. So if you want OSX, you can:

1. Get a pre-installed machine
2. Install OpenOSX (or a rebuild) and possibly work around limitations (say DVD playback)
3. Buy an OEM OSX and get the official OS, but unsupported
4. Buy a retail OSX and get the full OS, but unsupported

Without the OpenOSX, their probably wouldn't be the community support for the unsupported OSXs, but with it Apple could have a community dealing with the problems associated with running OSX on unofficial hardware.

The key is that Apple are extremely unlikely to lose many of their existing sales to this as very few Apple users will be interested in running unsupported. They would probably manage to create many hardware sales though from people who might have some access to a Mac (or even an ipod) and hence an inclination to try running it themslves and then ... They would also likely create lots of software sales, which will have a near zero marginal cost (developing an OEM OSX) leading to money for nothing (support is the killer cost, offloading most of their support to OEMs is why MS has such massive profit margins, what does an OEM sale of Windows cost them).

Perhaps Apple is hoping and expecting that hardware manufacturers will start to support OSX with their hardware, but I doubt they are depending on it in any way.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[jarich]

Apple charges a very very large markup on their hardware, I don't think the margin on their software would be nearly as high.

???

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[LWATCDR]

except that the Apple hardware is their copy protection system. If you only run MacOS on Apple an Apple Computer Apple knows that it got at least a little money from the user.
Why do people always forget the cost of the programmers?
Do you know how little a house costs before you add in the labor and the cost of the plans and permits?
Same thing with software.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Kadin2048]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[jonfelder]

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."

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Kadin2048]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[EggyToast]

Sure, video cards... And don't forget about all the real guts! The network cards, the USB cards, the old soundblasters. Oh and those mainboard drivers. All those people who install on VIA mainboards and get to install the after-install VIA 4in1 drivers? Yeah, you think OS X is going to support you?

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Kadin2048]

Actually, your comment about drivers is not true on the Mac.

Apple builds most of the generic drivers (USB Mass Storage, the input device drivers, even generic SCSI card drivers) for commonly available hardware. They do this because they realize their marketshare is too small to rely on aftermarket hardware providers to put the time in to make drivers that are reliable and would maintain a satisfactory user experience.

I have a lot of hardware attached to my Macs, and I can't think of anything that I've actually installed a manufacturer-supplied driver for. Perhaps the printer. But other than that, everything else runs using the default, Apple supplied generic drivers.

Apple doesn't have the market or mind-share to piss away customer goodwill by having them call up and get told that they're SOL because their hardware isn't supported. Better to just make the OS not run on unsupported systems at all, than to run poorly and give Apple and the Mac OS a bad reputation.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Kadin2048]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[pcidevel]

1. Apple would have to support a massively larger amount of hardware.

Due to the lack of formatting (probably not your fault) and because I happen to know quite a bit about the subject, I stopped reading at this sentence..

My nick, pcidevel, comes from the fact that I've spent the last 5 years developing device drivers for pci devices in Windows (as well as Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, etc).. I've never worked for Microsoft that whole time. Microsoft does not develop the device drivers for Windows, the third party manufacturer of the device does. I've written, probably close to a dozen drivers, from niche products to ethernet drivers for Intel (if you use a IBM or Intel ethernet card, you've probably encounterd my code.. yeah it's the shit that made your box BSOD, sorry about that)..

If Apple increases their market share and opens their APIs, hardware manufacturers will flock to OSX with device drivers. Hell I've had companies pay me to develop drivers for HP-UX, and there are probably around 15 people in the WORLD using HP-UX anymore. You can guarantee if there was even a fractional market for OSX using the hardware I've developed for, my boss would have me working on OSX drivers in a heartbeat, i.e. if Apple would let us, we would support them.. hardware manufacturers love cash..

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Lewisham]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[MoneyT]

Fuck, Apple can't even get people to understand that they don't support third party product ("What do you mean I have to call griffen to get my year old iTrip fixed?") and don't support HP iPods, you think people are smart enough to read a compatability list. How often to morons ask at the stores "will this game run on my computer" when the minimum system requirements are listed on the box?

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Kadin2048]

Uhhh....no.

What Apple is going to release are Apple Computers, which just happen to have processors made by Intel. You'd be a fool to think that means you can just plug in a PC video card. It's still going to be a "Macintosh computer," and to users that means that you need to buy Mac-compatible hardware if you want it to work correctly.

In other words, when you want a video card, you go to ATI and pick from the one or two 'Mac' video card versions they sell, or the same from nVidia. Nowhere has Apple done anything to suggest to anyone that this situation will change.

I think people here on Slashdot are making a bigger deal out of the processor change than average Mac users will. They'll still be buying and using those big silver metal boxes with the Apple on the front, and buying hardware that's compatible with it. The advantage of the new processors is increased speed, not wider hardware compatibility.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[tanguyr]

Microsoft would never allow Dell or any of the other major manufacturers to sell their boxes with an Apple OS.

Well, Dell already sells machines with factory-installed Linux, so i don't know about *never*, although i do concede that they certainly wouldn't appreciate it, especially since the target market would be different (any maybe bigger? hmmm, something to ponder...)

The real question is what would Apple gain by licensing OSX to Dell (or any other manufacturer/assembler)? They already did licensing deals with a number of third parties way back when, and shut them down post haste when it turned out they where cannibalizing their own sales.

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.

I'll go further than that: Apple's superiority in terms of P/E ratio is directly attributable to the surcharge they can get away with because "they're so pwetty" ;)

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[TheRaven64]

OS X is very different to the System 7 available with the clones. System 7 had a nice UI (for its time), but was getting very long in the tooth as an OS - it didn't even support pre-emptive multitasking or protected memory so any badly behaved app could kill your system.

At the time, the alternative was Windows 95 or Windows NT 4. 95 had a UI that, at a passing glance, was as good as a Mac, and NT 4 was a real OS. Both supported pre-emptive multitasking, although you needed NT 4 for protected memory.

Now, compare Windows XP to OS X. OS X is slightly behind in a few kernel areas, and ahead in some others. The UI, however, is significantly better - and it has far less of a virus risk (at least, at the moment). Some users may decide to upgrade to Vista but I'm not sure what compelling features this has that OS X doesn't - and it may well cost more.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[timster]

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?

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[jav1231]

You lost me at "the stability of XP."

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[ryanov]

They make sure to whip their slave laborers a bit harder than those of the competing factories. That's the Nike difference!

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Shanep]

So you are paying for a complete experience. Which I can get from Dell or something similar.

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 /. readers can take it from here...

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[xbasque]

one more item need to show up in that list : the cost of developing macsox and the ilife suite is fixed , as is the cost of designing chipsets and other hardware R&D . so - the greater the sales volumes , the smaller the costs per unit . (apple spends over half a billion in R&D each year) .

that's to say - the smaller apple's market share , the more expensive the units will be . SO ... if you PC folks stop whining and start buying macs soon , prices will come down substantially by the time you're ready to get your second mac . how's that for a plan ?

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[dustmite]

I don't think I've *ever* gotten a blue screen.

Of course not: Go to Start/Control Panel/System/Advanced, click "Settings" under "Startup and Recovery", then under "System Failure" uncheck "Automatically restart". Voila, you'll have blue screens again ;)

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[McNally]

Some users may decide to upgrade to Vista but I'm not sure what compelling features this has that OS X doesn't..

Do you mean what compelling features besides backwards compatibility with (nearly?) all of their existing software?

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[randyflood]

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.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[NoodleSlayer]

While it varies from division to division. I started my Internship at Apple this year. Currently I'm testing on a:

1.8 GHz iMac G5
Dual 866 MHz G4
450 MHz G4
400 MHz "B&W" G3
266 MHz iMac Rev B
233 MHz iMac

So. Even in Apple old hardware is still laying around and being used. Heck that B&W G3 is now nearly six years old and will still "run" Tiger, and it runs Panther rather well.

As it stands the average expected lifetime of a Mac is somewhere between 4-6 years, I've never had a PC longer then 2.5 yrs before upgrading the CPU & Mobo (at least that's what constitutes a "new PC" by my definition, building your own boxes the line can get blurry), and by four years a PC definately showing its age and starts to slow down quite a bit, largely because of Spyware and viruses too.

Hey look, the Apple legal team!

[richdun]

Wonder what they're up to today?

Salt?

[BigZaphod]

Putting salt on my monitor didn't make the terrible shock I got while trying to ingest this any better. Did I do something wrong?

VMWare

[WatertonMan]

Running it under VMWare (assuming you have a system that supports SSE3) will be a slow experience for many applications I suspect. Yeah most programs will run fine. But I'd not want to run iMovie or FCP.

Re:VMWare

[randomErr]

I would disagree with that statement. We're talking about x86 emulation on an x86 system. If properly emulated it should keep between 90-99% of its speed original.

Re:VMWare

[blackmonday]

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!

Re:VMWare

[TheRaven64]

Let me guess, you've never looked closely at x86 (and, really, who can blame you)?

There are a small set of (14?) instructions on x86 that can't be easily trapped. You have two choices, paravirtualisation (like Xen) or emulating an entire system but passing through all of the non-privileged instruction. VMWare does the second, and takes a significant (20%+) performance hit from it. In SPEC99, VMWare is under 30% of the speed of the host machine (source).

Re:VMWare

[MrGond]

nobody but VMWare is allowed to do such a comparison, without being sued

MS better watch their back

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:MS better watch their back

[TheOtherAgentM]

I don't agree. As someone that grew up on Windows and decided to try out Apple midway through college, it's not that simple. For us here on Slashdot, we realize the programs are similar in nature and are intuitive enough to figure out. However, I have switched many of my friends to Apple, making sure they knew how difficult it would be to unlearn what they already thought about computers. Most of them don't get very far in learning. That may be okay in a lot of cases, but if you are someone that has to be productive and you've learned to do things certain ways, switching is going to make Apple seem real inferior. Switching is not as easy as it appears.

Re:MS better watch their back

[rinoid]

This is such a dead horse.

Not just with the entry of the Mini.

You had been able to get a 1299.00 tower (1999 now which is too high an entry for a tower IMO).
A 799.00 eMac.
A 999.00 iBook.
And now you can even get a multi-button mouse !

The price argument has been gone for a few years now skippy.
These prices are competitive.

I have tried and tried to buy one of those 399.00 - 500.00 WinTel boxen just for a few tasks and games but it's not doable. Those boxes SUCK!!! Once you add the 300.00 video card the price goes up!

The other meme here is about Apple being a HW company, not a SW company.
Look at the SEC filing.
~30% revenue from iPod
~ 33% from CPUs
~ the rest is "Other Music Products, Peripherals & other HW, and Software & Other"

The upshot is not only CPU sales increasing (iPods natch but that's IMO a temporary phenom.) but SW sales are increasing.

True, the Tiger upgrades are a small percentage, but, people buy more CPUs because it runs Tiger, not Windows.

Hardware Hack Required!

[FlameTroll]

Ya have to duct tape the mouse buttons together...

Re:Hardware Hack Required!

[Epistax]

That's much easier! Here I was, chopping off people's middle fingers...

For the love of all that is holy..

[Anonymous Coward]

..please never, ever use Dvorak and Prophecy in the same phrase again.

Re:For the love of all that is holy..

[pixelated77]

Come on! This was the guy that in years past thought that

a) Microsoft would ship a hard drive full of MS Software (you have to go waaaaay back, when PCMag was still a thick magazine)
b) Email would become as slow as snail-mail
c) That the Internet would die a fiery death at least a half-dozen times

His wisdom is peerless and his insights bordering on omiscient.

Re:For the love of all that is holy..

[twocents]

Agreed! And I would add that even quoting Dvorak should be kept to a bare minimum.

Dvorak prophecy?

[Z0mb1eman]

Oh c'mon.

There are only two possible paths for Apple: continue to keep their OS working only on their hardware, or making it also work on x86.

I'm sure everyone who knows what a Mac is has speculated at one point or another what would happen if Apple made their OS work on x86 hardware, and whether they would, and why they would take that decision. Calling it the Dvorak prophecy seems way too pretentious.

Err..

[pickyouupatnine]

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).

Re:Err..

[randomErr]

Umm... boot it into an emulator that has generic drivers?

Re:Err..

[yellowbkpk]

Indeed, most of the people running this either have Intel chipsets to run it natively (one person posted some screenshots from their computer that was running a VIA chipset) or are emulating a generic chipset (via VMware).

Audio device support has been spotty (according to reports in the forums, but someone hooked up a Sony USB audio card and it worked flawlessly), along with NIC supprt (it seems 3Com and Intel chips are supported natively) and hardware GUI acceleration.

All of this is from the posts on the forums.

That's all good and well...

[TheOtherAgentM]

That works fine until one of Apple's security patches screws things up for those users. The one reason I like Apple is because they can control their hardware market. Lots of times when I did Windows Updates, the patches would be incompatible just because of driver and hardware issues. I know people that still can't installed Service Pack 2 on XP, because of their video cards. I prefer to stick with the hardware Apple is going to sell.

Re:That's all good and well...

[zoomzit]

With Apple controlling their hardware market, you are stuck with whatever they decide to ship you. You have no options.

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.

Re:That's all good and well...

[tholomyes]

You have no options.

That's odd, because on the Apple Store, it sure looks like you can choose either an ATI Radeon 9600, 9650, x850 XT, or Nvidia GeForce 6800 when you order your PowerMac.

And while that may be "limiting" the options, I would certainly not say you have "no" options. Maybe if you choose a Mac Mini you have no video card options, but, OTOH, you're choosing the Mac Mini.

Re:That's all good and well...

[zoomzit]

I stand corrected. 4 video card options for one system (power mac) and a single option for a second (Mac Mini). Compared to x86, that is pathetic.

The point of my original comment was that someone with XP will not have driver issues if they stay within mainstream hardware providers. In the x86 world, products from mainstream providers are very plentiful.

Ultimately the driver issues for XP are overblown and even if XP users have to limit their options to Nvidia and ATI, they still have many more options than their Apple counterparts.

Intentional or Unintentional?

[Profcrab]

A leaked, cracked version of that OS could quickly become a favorite for non-gaming computers. I have to wonder if this was an intentional leak or not. I dont know if it will supplant 3.11 as the most pirated OS ever, but it will be up there. This could be a market test for Apple to see if the demand is there to sell their OS to the non-Apple hardware crowd.

Dvorak just playing the odds

[Gothmolly]

Eventually he'll be right, and perhaps, once, before he dies, he'll actually have something insightful to say.

Key + Lock

[Nom du Keyboard]

Here is the key (OS-X86)
Here is the lock (Dell)
Take as long as you want with them.

YOU DID WHAT?!?!?!

everybody, lower your heart rate. except me.

[captnitro]

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.

Re:everybody, lower your heart rate. except me.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Calm down, people.

Iduno, man. I read the post, and I browsed the older comments at -1, and I really don't see too many people going batshit fucking loco. Just you.

So relax.

Disclaimer: I just switched to Windows at home. It's the bomb.

Article already slashdotted

[Penguinoflight]

Here's the link to the article:
http://slashcache.com/stories/8e3fd00a12869f50e7ec c0512672bf76/index.html
and here's a torrent for the x86 dev kit:
http://torrentspy.com/search.asp?mode=torrentdetai ls&id=369442&query=OS+

torrents...anyone?

[bogaboga]

Where can one grab the Mac OSX torrents? I need to try this out.

So what!

[Goth Biker Babe]

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.

Re:So what!

[It doesn't come easy]

I agree. People buy Apple because they want lots of good things, one of which is seamless operation, another top of the line hardware. People who steal the OS likely wouldn't fork over the cost of buying Apple hardware anyway, so the theft will NOT hurt Apple's bottom line while it MAY help Apple advertise their system. Given enough pirating, it is conceivable that Apple could eventually switch to selling the OS separately for cheap and have an immediate and significant boost to their market share. Hopefully, we'll get some real numbers in the next 24 months instead of all of this speculation...

Re:So what!

[justins]

Anyone who thinks this will hurt Apple's sales to a great extent is sadly mistaken.

Anyone like... Apple? They are putting a lot of money into DRM to keep this from happening.

Re:This is 'news'?

[ZackSchil]

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.

Hard OCP HardForum Thread

[smileyscout]

This thread http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=937806&p age=1&pp=20 Has some interesting screenies about MacOSX 86 running natively on a laptop. Be sure to check it out.

Handy for testing on Safari

[edxwelch]

That would be handy if it worked. I could test web sites for Safari without having to buy a Mac.

Please, never, ever ...

[ubrgeek]

... say, "fulfillment of the Dvorak prophecy." The last thing his ego needs is for /.'ers to agree with him ;)

Who cares?

[spectrokid]

So a couple of nerds will run OSX -sortish- on non Apple hardware. Any non-apple approved component will cause more instability. To get the full experience, (and be legal!!!!) you will still need to cough up the cash. At worst people will try it on their PC, and buy a real Apple as their next PC. How did Excel beet Lotus 123? Simple: Lotus 123 had copy protection. Where Apple will win big on their Intel-switch is servers. Think of them cooperating with Dell. Their market share for servers is marginal, and hardware esthetics doesn't matter for servers so they have nothing to lose. Suddenly a big player like Dell starts offering servers with Intel-like speed, Dell-like reliability, BSD-like stability and Mac-like userfriendliness. Heck, even I would have to think twice before saying no thanks!

Re:Who cares?

[NoodleSlayer]

You obviously have not seen the Mac OS X Server benchmarks.

They're pitiful.

Largely its due to OS X's inefficiencies with thread management. This has nothing to do with CPU performance, if you take a real look at some benchmarks the Power processors tend to whipe the floor with Xeons. By no means is it processor speed, and odds are the server products will be one of the last things moved over to x86.

As such OS X Server is mostly used by Schools and other mac heavy environments that want a Mac server.

Yes. It's easy to use. It's reasonably stable. However the limiting factor is OS not the hardware.

Torrents.

[Anonymous Cumshot]

Direct links to torrents of the videos showing OS X running on non-Apple hardware:

1. MacOSX x86 booting natively on a Pc notebook Mitac 8050D (Pentium-M 735/1.6GHz)

2. The boot on the same hardware, the permission error was repaired. We can see the "About this Mac" panel, Apple System Profiler and CHUD prefpane showing information on the processor (frequency, cache etc...)

And yes I know these are linked on the site, but if it gets slashdotted, at least you might be able to still grab the torrents since they appear to be on a different server.

Hold the salt please

[seven5]

This works. This is not running inside of vmware. This is running directly on hardware. No salt needed. I have this running on a dell computer right now. All you need to do is take the vmware image floating around the internet, and use dd to image it to a drive. Boot from the drive and it works.. Requirements include an SSE2 enabled cpu, that would be most p4's and amd64 and higher. Rosetta requires SSE3, so without that you get no ppc apps. Newer p4's using the .90nm process will have SSE3. Make sure you have a great Video card as well soyou have Quartz Extreme running. It is also possible to patch the install dvd and install strait to the hardware. But the Vmware image is the easiest to do. You dont even need vmware, just download the vmware image, and use linux or knoppix to dd it over to a blank drive. The next few weeks should be fun :) Compliant hardware on Ebay is going for $225 or so. Not bad.

Article is wrong and misleading

[IntergalacticWalrus]

It cannot run on any x86. OS X extensively uses SSE2 everywhere, and in some places SSE3 too. You need at least a SSE2-capable CPU to run it (Pentium 4, Pentium M, or any 64-bit AMD), and then again it's apparently not very stable.

Playing it both ways

[Fzz]

Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands?

Apple is clearly a hardware company, and so they make most of their money from selling hardware. Thus it's very unlikely that Apple would want to support generic x86 boxes.

But Apple has an interesting opportunity here. If they simply ignored people running unlicensed x86 copies, but prevented else anyone selling pre-installed Macs, then they probably wouldn't lose much business. The people who are willing to install MacOS themselves are unlikely to be the people who'd buy Mac hardware in the first place.

However, Apple would gain a lot of mindshare with the kids and with the technically savvy who are happy installing their own OS. In the long run, this will bring many more people to Apple hardware, and to influence their parents/family/employers to buy the supported Apple products.

Seems like Apple can't lose here.

-Fzz

Re:Playing it both ways

[rbanffy]

Fzz got it right.

By letting OSX be pirated Apple is following the winning strategy of Microsoft. The only difference is that the cheapest way to run MacOS is buying a Mac mini and I am notsure whether the cheapest way to run Windows is to buy a PC pre-installed with Windows or to buy a box with a CD inside.

By allowing PC users that would never buy a real copy of Windows, Microsoft used "virtual dumping" to get rid of any competition (by offering an "unsuported" version of its OS for free) and to increase its market share. When MS got rid of the competition in the OS arena, it had a healthy user base software writers were happy to make software available for.

Apple is using exactly the same strategy. By making OSX "unsuported" available to current PC users, Apple increases its user base, making it more attractive to build software for it and, at the same time, makes people try Apple software in the hopes they get the next PC upgrade.

In the meantime, they pretend that's not what they are doing.

Brilliant

Re:Why not offer it for all x86 systems?

[razmaspaz]

NO! Not because they wouldn't sell more copies of OSX, they would...not because they wouldn't ultimately sell more Macs, because they would...but because if they don't sell a version for the PC then they invite (yes invite) piracy. The same way Windows did in the 90's. Imagine if windows was impossible to copy, but every PC in Asia could get a copy of OSX running on it for free. Don't you think Apple would take over 90% of the market at that point? And here in the US, if people could get a pirated copy of OSX, they might like it and just go out and buy a Mac. Who knows. I think piracy is exactly what apple needs.

Proper torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful, a few GNAA fake torrents are being advertised here and there. Use this one if unsure.

Re: Funniest comment I've read all week

[tigris]

Damn it, I never have mod points when I need them.

Dvorak wasn't the first to make the prediction

[comicnerd]

I don't know if he's commented on it since, but Michael Swaine made a small but amusing prediction that this might happen waaay back in the April 1993 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. Here's a link to the Google cache version since the original wasn't coming up for me.

"Holy F!@king 5h17!"

[mnemonic_]

You know, you're allowed to swear on slashdot. Here, watch: fuck, shit. See? The worst you might experience is a down-modding. It's not so bad.

Yes, it's all about games...

[podperson]

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?

Re:Yes, it's all about games...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

OSX offers no compelling advantages, and many disadvantages, as a platform to game developers.

Actually that is mostly untrue. You don't think Carmack develops on a mac because he's a moron do you? The dev tools are very very nice and free.

...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.

Heh, I had both a mac and a PC back in the day when doom came out. At the time when many people were playing Doom 1 and 2, I was playing Marathon 1 and 2. It made all the PC users green with envy. The marathon games were so much better there was no comparison. Good sound, better graphics, better story, multiplayer in teams, voice chat with your team... all this many years before anything comparable was available on the PC. Sorry, but what kept games off the mac was market share, not graphics or device support.

Currently, a typical Mac gamer owns a PC to play games on.

No they don't. Currently, the extreme gamer who uses a mac for work, etc. owns a PC for games. The typical mac gamer owns a console and/or just plays games on their mac. The typical gamer does not actually need to play every game 3 months earlier and does not spend tons of money upgrading their machine every year. You've mistaken yourself for a typical gamer when you are, in fact, quite atypical.

On the plus side as far as you are concerned, Windows will run on your x86 mac, and if you don't like rebooting, within a short period of time it will probably run at near real speeds in emulation. Of course being an extreme gamer you probably need that extra 5 FPS so you will probably reboot it anyway. Good luck.

...do not be surprise if it disappears

[Anonymous Coward]

"do not be surprise if it disappears"

so I'm putting a copy here for safe keeping:

Wednesday August 10, 2005

- Mac OSX x86 on PC: and now a video! [Upd] - bad_duck - 21:03:35

The Apple Developer kit version of MacOSX x86 has indeed been fully cracked!
An anonymous source has sent us a video showing MacOSX x86 booting natively on a Pc notebook Mitac 8050D (Pentium-M 735/1.6GHz).

Boot Mac OS X 86 (Mpeg4 - 1,5 Mo) - [torrent]

As you can see the boot phase is rather fast, and the error message at the end is simply due to an right/authorization error due to the kext allowing PS/2 support.

[Upd]
Here is a second video showing the boot on the same hardware, the permission error was repaired. We can see the "About this Mac" panel, Apple System Profiler and CHUD prefpane showing information on the processor (frequency, cache etc...).

Boot Mac OS X 86 v2 (.mov - 11,5 Mo) - [torrent]

[Update] - We've added torrent files for the 2 videos to relieve the stress on our server. If you use them, please keep seeding as long as possible, thank you.

[translation by Eric]

[edited - windows vista crap removed]

- Mac OSX x86 on any PC : a reality, current status - Yoc - 14:18:24

Hereafter is the current status of the OSX x86 on any PC project run by PC/Mac "bidouilleurs"

Initial problems

Several system prevent running OSX x86 on any PC:
1. TPM chips from Intel
2. SSE3-enable processor
3. GMA900-based graphic card to natively support Quartz.

First solution: VMWare

simply install VMare on ANYPC, and this application will emulate what needs to be (GMA900, SSE3 ...)
Of course this is only a short-term solution, since it is rather instable, and particularly slow.
since this morning one can find on P2P network an already configures VMWare image OSX x86.

Patches

Several solution have been found. The TPM is cracked, and no one needs it anymore. The SSE3 requirement, can be bypassed via quite complex modifications, and this case several kernels will not work since they REALLY need SSE3. A patch for those kernels is being prepared allowing SSE3 instructions to be translated into their corresponding SSE2 ones.
GMA900 can be avoided by modifying CoreGrapics, patches are also available.

The best solution: the right hardware

The best and the most secure solution is a motherboard from Intel: D915 GA, GL or GU :
http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/ux/

Excellent results have been obtained with Gigabytes GA-8I915P motherboard card:
http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Products/Prod ucts_GA-8I915P%20Duo-A.htm

Users with such a motherboard and a Pentium 4 will be able to install MacOSX x86 with the patch for Rosetta (without the patch if you choose a SSE3-enable Pentium4).
Be careful not to use any HD in RAID settings, otherwise it will crash your system.
Use a USB keyboard, PS2 port is not really well supported.

First tests

First tests have shown that MacOSX x86 on PC is very reactive, no crash, iTunes is running perfectly, with Rosetta.
Digital camera work perfectly with iPhoto, as well as digital camcorder with iMovie.

Another solution
The last solution is based on installation of Darw

i'm sorry, what was that?

[durangotang]

" IE supports everything."

I cannot believe that I am seeing these letters strung together into these words, thus formlating this sentence.

I hereby discredid any utterance that you manage to put forth!

Shame on you!

:-)

Predictions

[tgibbs]

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.

All part of Jobs' plan...

[bshroyer]

Well, perhaps not, but if I were Jobs, it would be going something like this:

1. Develop OSX for x86, in secret
2. Announce it to a stunned audience
3. Seed dev Intel boxes
4. Wait for image to leak
5. Anticipate hackers discover image will boot on SSE3 procs
6. ???
7. Gain market share
8. Profit!!!

The trick is in step 6:

Insert the following code into Aqua:

aqua_speed=1.0;
if (!genuine_apple_hardware_bit) aqua_speed=0.25;

Thus, OSX runs natively on non-Apple hardware, but the GUI runs at quarter speed. If you want full-speed Aqua, you'll need the branded hardware. It's the crack dealer's approach: your first taste is free. There'll be time enough to get your money once you're hooked.

Re:PLEASE don't credit this to Dvorak....

[Molecular Mechanic]

The word "prohecy" really bugs me, too.

White Box vs. Apple Hardware...

[BawbBitchen]

I have built maybe 30 or so white box intel/amd hardware computer over the years, starting back with the 386. I have also owned a Dual 500 Mac, and 2 iBooks. At the end of the day, I would pay $400 more for the Apple hardware vs. building it myself. My Apple hardware just works, never breaks (and that goes for my friends that have about 20 Macs between them). I cannot say the same thing for any of the PC hardware. Sure I have had some systems, PC, that just keep working, but in the end the quality of the PC systems (not to mention style!) was just not there.

Look! On topic!

[SPY_jmr1]

You're new here, aren't you?

Dangerous Game...

[Run4yourlives]

There's no guarantee that the code in question won't also be hacked, so that would be a bad business move. The risk is too high.

What's more likely is that the hardware compatibily has been completely ignored in the plans, and that the "hacked", freely available OS has been factored in to a certain percentage of lost hardware sales, and it's still deemed to be a profitable move.

As the author of the tutorial...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can assure everyone that it DOES work as written. PPC apps crap out due to SSE3 lacking on my own system, but the VMware tutorial does the best that can be done with OSX x86 right now.
N.B. NO, I do NOT condone piracy in any way shape or form. Parts I left out deal with the more copyright-worrying issues and I left them out exactly for that reason.
Anyway, hope some/all of you enjoy getting it up and running. I've had exactly four days experience with Darwin and I can repeat the steps and be at GUI in around a half hour. So anyone can. Enjoy,
Kal/"Twigletesque".

Re:Apple x86 hardware = not teh l33t

[Mechcozmo]

Again, you are seeing DEVELOPER stuff now.

Apple motherboards are made by ASUS. So? You can't buy them... same thing with the new Intel boards. They will be customized for Apple only. The current boards? They are custom made to fit the holes in the back of the G5.

Can't buy that, can you?

Pretty easy solution

[grahamsz]

Compile aqua without optimizations.

It'd be far harder for a hacker to find a way to optimize the binary than change some constant.

Re:Pretty easy solution

[akuma(x86)]

It'd be far harder for a hacker to find a way to optimize the binary than change some constant

Then it's time to bust out the dynamic recompiler

Only the developper kit has been hacked

[Anonymous Coward]

The real hardware level protection has not been activated yet, and it will be only once the system goes on production.

Mirror for HOWTO Guide

[tini1212]

http://mirrordot.org/stories/8e3fd00a12869f50e7ecc 0512672bf76/index.html

You are right, however...

[neoshroom]

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...;)

I'd pay Apple's premium to get OSX on a thinkpad.

[argent]

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.

Software vs Hardware

[DECS]

Steve Jobs once commented that Apple, like Microsoft, can "print money" in a way that its hardware competitors (like Dell) can't.

But before you get carried away suggesting that Apple throw away their existing computer company and become a software company, consider this:

1) Microsoft isn't rich and powerful because they deliver the best OS technology, or because they compete in software value, but rather because they own a monopoly in the PC OS Software market, a monopoly they built through predatory marketing and anti-competitive deals with hardware makers that killed rivals. Microsoft does not compete in software sales, they have imposed a tax on every PC sold in the last two decades.

2) Free/OSS software is frequently based upon a support business plan. If the world was ready to pay money for software, this might not have been necessary. Nobody is really excited about buying software, unless it is being expertly sold to them with some handholding. As noted above, Microsoft got around this by making Windows sales invisible to hardware buyers.

3) There is a long list of OS efforts that have failed to survive as software only companies: DR-DOS, NeXTStep, BeOS, OS/2, AmigaOS. They didn't succeed, even though they were "printing money" and enjoying those 'high margin profits' on every unit sold.

4) Apple has sucessfully made money selling their own computers as long as they've been around. They currently make higher margins than PC makers. Risking that sucess to take a shot at a software sales business plan with a very high mortality rate does not sound sensible.

5) While common sense suggests the way to make money is by giving away razor handles and selling blades, Apple has managed to sell Macs (handles) at a good profit, while also selling blades (Mac OS X) to their customers better than Microsoft. In 5 years, Apple has sold 4 paid versions of OS X, compared to 2 paid upgrades of Windows from Microsoft. Of course, Microsoft doens't sell their customers many upgrade copies of Windows, they just collect taxes in the form of site licenses and new hardware tariffs. Hard to compete with that.

So do the math. Will Apple benefit from gutting their low end Mac market, and handing their iBook and iMac sales to HP and Dell, on the gamble that users will buy paid upgrades to OS X, rather than pirate it? They would be likely to lose their high end market as well, to Dell, AlienWare and whoever else. And their XServes. Yeah, that sounds bad.

Why not keep those home Mac buyers at the Apple Store, sell them new iBooks and iMacs, and then show them why they also might want iWork, iLife, a printer, an iPod and a new version of OS X, as well as AppleCare and .Mac, and then another iBook and then the next version of OS X?

Or how about education customers, who buy labs of laptops and Airports and XServes and XS RAIDS, should Apple send their customers to Dell for all that gear, and then try to sell them OS X in place of the Windows they already licensed through Dell?

Fucking Duh, yeah they'd be better off just selling an OS X license to a few schlumps who decided not to bother with the torrent download. Of the 100,000 Slashdotters who'd check out OS X on their PC, how many would pay for it in a retail box? A whole lot less than would consider buying a Mac Mini or PowerBook, if the PC wasn't an option.

You better bet Apple will do everything possible to make OS X run clumsily on PCs, and break hacks with every software update. Do you supose Apple will spare PC pirates the indignation they launched upon Real's for their Harmony AAC copy protection designed to play music on the iPod?

6) Apple recently complimented their sucessful hardware and software sales on the Mac platform with the iPod platform, which similarly sells higher margin hardware along with supplementary software sales (iTMS) and peripherals. In the case of the iPod, free software (iTunes) drives hardware sales. Do you think Apple could have sold iTunes and made as much profit as they do now with the iPod? What if they sold iTunes for all the WMA players out there, would that make them lots of money?

Return of the clones ?

[Pierre-Arnaud]

But then, if Apple can make a Macintosh compatible with Windows, why couldn't they quietly create a new platform based on that, with machine specs defined by them, and let other assemblers slowly propose a new breed of clones ? Couldn't integration be as good as in a genuine Apple Macintosh ? And then let start a market for compatible/checked/approved only peripherals and parts ?

Besides the economic model of Apple being a hardware manufacturer with no competition on OS X... I personnaly think Apple hardware division maintains a quality which would assure them to be competitive in the upper margins sections of a more open market.

The first Mac clones were not compatible with Windows, so the market was for MacOS only, to be divided, and Apple lost shares of what was entirely his before. But with Windows and Linux compatibility, the sharing would be on a potentially much larger market...

Perhaps the launch of their Windows compatible Macintoshes is only the first step... Sell them to new users, assuring recognition and new fidelities, creating a larger market for Macintels (with more potential customers, so more demand for compatible peripherals,accessories and parts), and when this growth field is saturated anew, quietly open the platform with such a plan...

Just questionning.

Note : excuse my english, I'm french...

AMD64 is SSE3, too

[hkb]

There seems to be a big misconception that AMD64 chips aren't SSE3 capable, and maybe most aren't, but my Venice core AMD64 chip is most definitely SSE3 capable, so...