Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the i-don't-hardly-believe-it dept.
Slashfan writes "It has been widely reported allovertheInternet that it is extremely easy to get the Intel port of Mac OS X to run on regualar PC boxes.
Some of the hackers are running the tweaked version of the operating system on their PCs natively." Pardon my skepticism ;)
I have always wanted to try out on my Intel box and my dream is finally coming true. I hope Steve learns a lesson from this and does not put DRM in the official version
I would hope that Apple does not ever release their OS for the standard PC. It would be terrible for their image. Sure the Mac OS works great on Apple's machines, but start throwing it on people custom machines and trying to run all kinds of crazy hardware setups and OS X isn't going to run so swell anymore. The reason the Mac OS runs so well is because it and the hardware it runs on are meant to run together.
Windows, which is really a great OS, gets such a bad rap because it's expected to run with every piece of hardware out there flawlessly. No one stops to think that it's a miracle that it runs as well as it does on so many systems. Not to put down the Mac OS, but compatibilty realy isn't so much of an issue/concern for OS X as much as it is for Windows.
So basically, OS X runs good because it runs on Apple hardware. Start putting it on other machines, and it won't be too long before "OMG this OS suxors! It keeps crashing all the time on my CompuExpress UltraGaming Machine 2000!"
-- Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
I hope Steve learns a lesson from this and does not put DRM in the official version
It seems to me the only lesson to be learned is "If we don't make a serious effort to make our x86 macs different enough from vanilla PCs, a bunch of jackassess will just download it off some P2P network, run it on their own boxes, and freeload off our hard work".
Having learned that, why would he not make it harder for people to obtain and use OS X without purchasing their products?
What that dishonest people will lie, violate their NDAs, illegally infringe upon his copyrights, and not pay him a red cent because they have some sense of entitlement? Not exactly model customers for a software company that (usually) prides itself on trusting its customers and does not even require an authentication code to install and run its OS and the majority of its commercial applications.
MS makes you pay when you buy the hardware and does not worry and just tries to annoy you when you pirate. Apple also has not worried about pirates and makes you pay when you buy the hardware. Apple running on commodity PCs would make this situation one where you pay MS when you buy your hardware and then pirate Apple's OS and pay them nothing. And you applaud pirates freely distributing this pirate copy?
I'm sure Jobs has learned a lesson all right, that being PC users are untrustworthy and if there is no DRM locking OS X onto Apple boxes they will all just pirate it without paying one penny.
Yeah, sure Mac OS runs better on MACs than on PCs. Well, it seems to me that trying to get software to run on a platform that it wasn't designed for is what being a hacker/geek is all about.
Perhaps we shouldn't try then. MAC OS was just intended to be run on Macs, and that is that. Oh, woe is the PC user for he cannot see Expose at work!
Windows, which is really a great OS, gets such a bad rap because it's expected to run with every piece of hardware out there flawlessly.
Then it's not a good OS. It is the job of the operating system to abstract the hardware so applications can run on it hardware-agnostic.
The problem with windos is that it tries to do a million other things except the one thing an operating should do - be a stable and reliable platform for other stuff to build upon.
IIRC, Apple's plans for the retail Mactel boxes include a custom BIOS. The reason the existing dev release is so easy to run on generic PCs is that the dev kit boxes use a standard PC BIOS; once the "real" Mactel machines are moved to a custom BIOS, I would make an uninformed guess that getting it to boot on a generic PC with a standard BIOS would be much more difficult.
Can someone who knows more about BIOS foo comment on this? I'm curious myself...
Re:Congrats
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Hmm... now where did apple most of it's fancy OS? Write it all from scratch?
Nah, *that's* not freeloading cuz this is apple and they are so nice and cuddly and and and... and yer a fanboy.
The wireless Bluetooth mouse, Bluetooth cellphone, external Firewire HDD's, external Firewire DVD, OEM ATI Radeon video card, external USB printer, Linksys/Cisco wireless network base station, non-Apple LCD monitor, USB pen drive, etc. and EVERYTHING works perfectly with OS X (I am running 10.4.2).
Almost every "standard-based" piece of hardware ought to work. Bluetooth mice and keyboards, external USB or Firewire storage, monitors and many printers (Postscript or PCL, for example) are very standard pieces of hardware and do not need "esoteric" drivers most of the time. Most of the hardware you mention (I'll give you the USB pen drive, I've never used one) is pretty standard and is EXPECTED to work. Am I to praise Apple because an LCD MONITOR works!?!? (unless of course the monitor is some 32" 12-bit grey weird model) Or do you consider an OEM ATI Radeon card a rarity (it doesn't get any more standard than this!)?
Try some video capture cards, some older scanners, SCSI controllers, old (non-realtek or 3com) ethernet cards, maybe a winmodem or a winprinter. Non-PnP peripherals, serial or parallel port hardware, ISA cards (research apparatus that we use at the lab needs an ISA card interface) are even harder to support. This is the kind of crap that Windows or Linux has to put up with. Apple has been intelligent and lucky enough to promote the use of standard peripherals while at the same time keeping a steady hardware base (motherboard/CPU at least). Furthermore, the Apple user will usually tolerate the fact that his hardware and software is obsolete[1] when new models come out, while the Windows user expects full backwards compatibility (hell, even XP includes DOS and Win95 mode for old applications!).
Anyway, the hardware drivers are privileged pieces of code. It is true that Win has a huge disadvantage by running drivers in Ring 0 (kernel privileges). I imagine that the OS X approach is superior, but that doesn't mean that the problems they are facing with hardware are equivalent to the chaos that prevails in the x86 world.
P.
[1] This does not mean that the hardware ceases to work. Several people may work happily with MacOS 9 or very old CPUs. However, they do not expect to carry over their hardware/software.
Re:Congrats
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
I'd be willing to bet that Apple has contributed more per capita to the open source movement than you have ever even thought about. They submit changes to just about every piece of GPL software they use. They've made KHTML (and as a result, the whole of KDE) better. They've given you things like Rendezvous (zeroconf), launchd, and a bunch of other crap I can't think of off the top of my head.
And Apple did, in fact, write a lot of its fancy OS from scratch. As NeXT. To my knowledge, there was no IOKit, Display PDF, Quartz, Mac OS Services, or QuickTime before Apple wrote them.
Perhaps, a licensed version soon?
by
Blindman
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Apple has to realize that there is a demand for their software of the x86 PC. Obviously, there would be problems if they had to support all the varieties of x86 PC hardware, but they could at least try to provide a version that works for the customers willing to use it.
-- I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
Re:Perhaps, a licensed version soon?
by
ciroknight
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Apple can notice the demand all it wants, but in order to produce the quality that they must to stay competitive, they _must_ limit their hardware install base, or they _must_ grow to being the size of Microsoft overnight.
Simply handing off driver creation to the companies isn't an effective way of ensuring something will work. Many companies will half-ass a driver just to get their product, others won't even put that much effort in to it.
OS X is a great operating system. Apple has the right to demand that you buy their hardware to use it.
-- "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
OSX DRM similar to ITMS DRM
by
SuperKendall
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It seems to me that the philospophy behind OS X DRM is exactly the same as ITMS DRM - the DRM is just there to say "we'd rather you not do that" but they don't take a lot of steps to stop the people that work around it.
Really this makes the most sense. Any kind of DRM is going to be broken eventually, so it makes sense to do a quick and cheap effort to stop casual users but not to expend a huge amount of money or time on an effort that is, in the end, futile.
So the shipping version will also probably have some light protections on it but I'm sure it will be cracked and spread shortly.
The interesting thing I read is that as a result of being able to run this on other boxes, people are writing new drivers for devices not covered before - if the source for these drivers is public it could drive more devices to work under OSX (even on the PPC) than did before!
-- "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:It's been said before
by
blibbler
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· Score: 4, Insightful
and I'll say it again: people go and install OSX on a cheap machine, realise how great it is, and then when they want a new machine, they get another cheap machine, and install OSX on that one. I can't see any reason why someone would pirate it the first time, then go out and spend extra to get an Apple machine, when can get (or build) a similar (albeit stylistically challenged) machine cheaper.
Your argument might be valid if the final intel version of OSX wasn't (as easily) hackable, so people wouldn't be able to run the final version on non-apple machines.
Re:Not Surprising
by
Alan+Partridge
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Apple have been in direct competition with MS for 20 years, and they've only survived by picking their battles. Maybe now is the right time, but to my eyes it looks like MS Office is as big as it ever was. Windows is there to strengthen Office, Office os there to make MONEY. Best case scenario for Apple selling shrink-wrapped OSX for x86 is that MS has a new platform through which to force Office down the world's throats - what do we gain? We certainly LOSE PowerPC as the only realistic alternative to x86.
-- That was classic intercourse!
Re:What's the point - RTFA
by
GAATTC
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· Score: 2, Insightful
From the wired coverage of this story:
'No one knows exactly why OSx86 appears to be running faster on the PCs than the Mac OS does on today's Macs.
"To be honest, we're not sure," said a hacker nicknamed "cmoski," who said he works for a large software company.'
The same could be said about linux.
by
Reeses
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Alright, I've seen this argument a number of times, and for some reason people forget that OS X is unix-based. It has the same ability to handle hardware that all other unixen do.
In the above statements, if you could substitute the word "Linux" or "NetBSD" for every occurrence of Macintosh, and not sound like some sort of raving lunatic, I'd be surprised.
I don't understand how Linx and xBSDs can be expected to "run everywhere" on everything, yet, for some reason OS X, a very pretty GUI that is supported by the same technology as the other Unixes, is excluded from that. It just mystifies me.
Maybe it's just anti-Mac zealotry.
-- Reeses
Re:The same could be said about linux.
by
alienfluid
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· Score: 2, Insightful
How many 3rd party hardware vendors ship Linux device drivers as compared to Windows drivers?
The major share of Windows crashes are due to poorly written device drivers that 3rd party hardware vendors write. In the past, these drivers has access to critical sections of the kernel and so if for example, they had a buffer overrun, it was possible that it could write a critical section of the kernel space, thus bringing down the machine. With Vista, this is going to change.
I am only saying that the original poster did get it right by saying that Windows crashes mostly because of compatibility issues and not because of poorly written software. I agree, MS has had its share of problems (security, architecture and etc.), but it does not change this fact.
Re:The same could be said about linux.
by
mcc
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· Score: 2, Insightful
In the above statements, if you could substitute the word "Linux" or "NetBSD" for every occurrence of Macintosh, and not sound like some sort of raving lunatic, I'd be surprised.
Uh... well... let's try.
"Sure [Linux] works great on [a popular configuration], but start throwing it on people custom machines and trying to run all kinds of crazy hardware setups and [Linux] isn't going to run so swell anymore."
Honestly this seems to describe my exact experience with Linux. There have been multiple times that I've attempted to install Linux on [X random piece of obscure hardware] and had to spend a pretty decent amount of time hunting down network drivers, compiling video drivers, hand-editing module files and generally just doing things that would be impossible for a non-programmer to even attempt.
Yeah, Linux has support for a disturbingly large range of hardware. That doesn't mean it has good support for even an acceptably large range of hardware. If we're supposed to expect that Mac OS X would be able to handle wide and varied hardware with the same level of functionality and ease of use as Linux does, this would seem to be the most extreme argument in favor of keeping OS X on Apple hardware possible. One word: XF86Config.
Re:The same could be said about linux.
by
timeOday
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Argh, you're making the wrong point with the right analogy.
The truth is, Limited hardware support is precisely the reason Linux cannot become mainstream on the desktop in the forseeable future, and it does not bode well for OSX on general PC hardware.
I use Linux full time every day, and the software, for the most part, is good. But fighting with hardware is the #1 source of frustration. The fact is you just don't know a lot of times whether something you buy will work. There are tons of supported hardware lists out there, and every one is about 50% wrong for a variety of reasons - they're outdated, incomplete, and also people who submit information to them are very liberal in calling devices "fully supported." In practice, very many don't work fully and are unstable. This despite the fact that most of the linux kernel is drivers. To have everything but the drivers is to have very little.
Re:The same could be said about linux.
by
ciroknight
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Parent post is simply ignorance.
Linux or any BSD is hardly a commodity OS. It runs on everything because there is a geek somewhere with every piece of hardware imaginable who has nothing better to do than make that operating system work.
Meanwhile OS X has to run because the people who want to use their computers, aren't the kinds of people who have time to make every single piece of hardware work.
Microsoft's Windows works on a lot of hardware because of the WHQL program they've instituted, and that only works because they're big enough to pressure PC manufacturers to use cheap, standard components, and because they've got the money to buy every single piece of hardware, and code for it. And, if you haven't used Windows lately, there are still hundreds upon thousands of bugs. My P3's audio quality sucks, my mom's P4's disk controller is a serious flake. Both are Dells.
Linux isn't expected to run everywhere. Linux is MADE to run everywhere. This requires effort. This kind of effort isn't economical for a business to support. I'd feel sorry if Redhat or IBM decided to go out and support hardware.. they'd immediately go out of business dealing with the Tech Support alone.
-- "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Re:The same could be said about linux.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
you should really try something like ubuntu. If you install just the Linux you might not get much work done;)
You probably couldn't install Windows either, and nobody can without hunting for drivers all over the net. Actually, not being able to get a modern Linux distro to install is quite a feat these days.
Repeat after me: "copying a text command from the Internet is not programming.." And give me the name of the quality product that Linux doesn't have good support for!
Re:What's the point
by
m50d
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Not really. These are x86 chips made by Intel themselves, so the only thing your mac hardware premium (and don't try and claim it doesn't exist) is going on is the software and the pretty boxes. It's more like reflashing your video card to behave like a more expensive model, something many of us here applaud.
-- I am trolling
Sell a "dev kit" version of OS X for x86
by
angryflute
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· Score: 5, Insightful
This way Apple can make money by selling legitimate copies of OS X to the geek/hacker/developer community, and not have to worry about fully supporting the operating system for the average computer user. This version would, after all, be for "development purposes only".
It would also have a legitimate purpose for Apple, too: It would further encourage software development for the company's MacIntel line.
The hacker/geek community gets to build their own gray box OS X systems, and Apple still makes most of its money with average computer users through its hardware. Furthermore, more software is developed by independent programmers. Everybody wins.
Re:It's been said before
by
Apotsy
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· Score: 2, Insightful
then those people can buy Apple hardware in a year or two when they upgrade.
They can buy Apple hardware right now if they want, but they don't. And they still won't in your scenario. Why? Same reason as today: because they'll take one look at the price and buy a Dell instead.
Rampant pirate copies of OS X will not change that.
Exactly!!
by
snowwrestler
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Any OS will be more reliable, secure, and just plain work better if it can be tweaked carefully for the exact hardware configuration it's running on. Linux and Unix allow anyone, including the end user, to customize their configuration to the exact hardware it's running on. It's not exactly easy though, is it?
Apple takes the opposite tack to achieve the same end result--rather than complete freedom to customize the software, they strictly limit the hardware.
Either way, the end result is a product in which the software and hardware are closely matched. Apple's way produces a much more limited set of final products, but at very little effort to the end user. Linux provides a lot more freedom, but at considerable cost to the user in terms of expertise or time.
But Microsoft tries to have it both ways. In order to realize the vast economy of scale that makes it so profitable, Windows is written once to accomodate a wide variety of hardware configurations. And you can't tweak it or modify it. So the end result is a generic software config running on generic hardware. It will never work as well as a dedicated OS on known hardware.
Finally it's important to understand Apple's approach to computing...they sell computers. Not computer parts. You can't buy a DVD player or a digital TV without its operating system, and you can't buy the operating system without the hardware. It's an appliance--you plug it in and use it. That's how Apple (Jobs) views computers, and it's why they won't license their OS. You might as well ask Sony to licence the OS running on their DVD player.
-- Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Re:What about solaris x86?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
My guess is this story is complete FUD.
My guess is that you don't know what FUD means.
It's theirs. Get over it.
by
dduck
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Guess I have some karma to burn, so here goes:
To the ones bitching over the (very very low, IMHO) possibility that Apple will NOT release OS-X for generix x86:
It's theirs. They made it. They can do with it whatever they want. They have that right. If you don't like it, go code a better OS yourself or something, but don't bitch at them - that only makes you sound like a kid who can't get his/her way.
Or in playground terms: It is indeed their ball, and they can take it home with them if they feel like it.
Yes, it's software, so you can copy it without taking the original away from someone, but that it still stealing. Just because you want it, doesn't mean that you have a right to have it - no matter how much you want it.
Re:What's the point
by
ciroknight
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· Score: 4, Insightful
You act as if a CPU is all that makes a computer a computer.
Motherboards, chipsets, video cards, hell even computer cases are all part of the Apple experience. If you want to believe that the only "premium" you're paying for is the operating system, then believe it all you like. But when you run out and try one of the machines, you'll realize there's a lot more to it.
Apple puts serious time into making their product work, and to making it work, every single time. They put serious effort into having good tech support. They put serious effort into making their machines fast (as that's the number one driving force to x86 today). They put serious effort into making sure the ram your system uses is of quality. The list goes on.
Most PC vendors are bidding in a market to get the cheapest, working parts they can find, and if you like your machines to run like that, then by all means I won't stop you. But before I went to Apple, I built my machine with premium parts that I raed reviews on and made sure were of quality. After doing the same with Apple's components, and finding out it was, in the end, much cheaper to go with their pre-built machine, I switched.
Besides, if you call a hundred or two bucks a premium, then your really talking bottom barrel parts. Apple doesn't even want your money if you're not willing to spend it.
-- "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Re:Congrats --- me a Troll?
by
badasscat
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· Score: 2, Insightful
They also do not enforce any form of copy protection to prevent you from installing on multiple machines because the "trust" users.
Well, that and the fact that even if you do pirate their software, they know that you have already given them several thousand dollars for the hardware you're running it on. It seems to me it has very little to do with "trust" and everything to do with promoting their hardware.
That will not be the case once they switch to Intel. They're already learning about the wild west of the Intel world (cue conspiracy theories, but I don't think this was all intentional). Once they realize that hey, people can install their software on multiple machines and not give Apple a dime, you can expect restrictive DRM and copy protection to be introduced right quick.
I believe there will be a small to medium community porting linux drivers to OSX to allow people to use unsupported hardware, both in their official Apple boxes and their whiteboxes.
Re:Apple quality is not about the architecture.
by
ciroknight
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· Score: 3, Insightful
And you sir, are mistaken.
You can buy all of that stuff, put it together, and have a PC. You will never have a Mac.
A Mac is the entire machine. It starts with the case, and moves to the (usually Apple designed) motherboard, the Apple designed Bluetooth, the Apple designe Firewire, the Apple designed WiFi modules, then moves on to the placement of fans, the duct work, the attention to details. And you end up with a machine that performs the same function, but is of a much higher quality; a computer that's as much as computer as it is a piece of furnature in the room, and that's the idea of the Mac.
While your machine may run OS X (and that's a long shot; these machines are running a developmental, most likely tagged, build of OS X that may never see the light of day on Macs), it will never match up with the quality, or the design.
If people thought about their computers the same way they thought about their cars, they'd realize exactly what Apple's going for. When you buy Apple you buy a Lexus. When you buy Dell, you buy a Kia.
-- "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I would think they would port bsd drivers to OSX, since OSX is just bsd with pretty stuff on it
Re:It's been said before
by
Dolly_Llama
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· Score: 2, Insightful
In some other discussion of.com failures, someone remarked in comments about how the marketing blitz of the.com world failed miserably because it didn't take into consideration who really makes decisions and influences people about computer related decisions. Instead of speding X millions of dollars buying a superbowl ad, the successful companies tried and succeeded into getting their products into the hands and minds of the alpha geeks and was then disseminated to the unwashed (maybe the washed in this case) masses. Google didnt become the monolith it is because it ran stupid superbowl ads. It had a superior product, and geeks told geeks who told normal people.
Maybe this is apple's way of doing the same thing. If installing OS X on your Fry's especiale pizza box system is easy, but not trivial, the alpha geeks are given a challenge to sort out the messes that x86 OS X represents. Hell maybe the open source mentality will lead to bugfixes headed back to Cupertino.
Once this core geek-ocracy is on board with x86, applications are ready, the x86 Macs appear, THEN will the influence have spread to those with purchase authority, both in the home and in the office....so maybe my tinfoil hat is on inside-out, but I think, 'leaking' x86 OS X was both intentional, and brilliant!
--
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-- Carl Sagan
and I bet geeks pirate it more than pay for it too
by
Shivetya
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Apple isn't going to take on Microsoft. First Apple knows better than to waste their time trying to make an OS that supports every damn accessory; card or plugged in; as that only invites frustration on the consumer level.
I believe it is more likely Apple was fully expecting this to happen and have already "written it off". There won't be enough geeks pirating it to matter and they don't have to support anyone who does. If anything it may help them because more people will become familar with how it looks and feel. By that I mean some of these basement dwellers will show it off to coworkers and relatives - bragging that they did it but at the same time spreading the Apple kool-aid without realizing it.
Two markets Apple has to get into. 1. Corporate. How many years has it taken AMD to do it, and they are only trying to sell a product that runs everything their competitor already does!
2. Games. That is going to be the hard sell. The big item in most retail stores are lots of junk software for web related stuff and then GAMES. Lots and lots of games. All of which require "Windows XP". How will Apple convince developers to write for their platform?
No, I don't see Apple competeing with Microsoft. The "Duopoloy" of Apple and Microsoft will continue on the desktop for some time. Just because they run on similar hardware doesn't mean they will compete or want to compete.
-- *
Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Re:as a computer maker, Apple is done
by
2nd+Post!
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· Score: 2, Insightful
So you're projecting into a future that doesn't yet exist because of companies that don't share the same business models that happened to fail?
You use Sega, for example, but fail to note that the forces that killed Sega (commoditization) hasn't killed Nintendo (Gameboy Advance, Gameboy DS) and hasn't killed Sony (Playstation, Playstation 2). You bring up SGI, but then can't account for the fact that commoditization hasn't killed IBM (who has their own CPU and architecture, Power and PowerPC, used in supercomputers, GameCubes, the Revolution, Playstation 3s, and XBox 360s). You also bring up DEC Alpha, but don't account for the fact that AMD and IBM are still around (both also produce stellar 64bit CPUs).
If what you say is true, then IBM and AMD will be killed by Intel and commoditization, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony will become software only houses because their hardware became commoditized (which makes no sense because that isn't what happened to Sega).
Reality is much more complex. Apple has a niche due to specialization in the music market; the iPod and the iTMS gives them tremendous brand and marketing cachet. Apple also has a profitable computer division, selling solutions no one else does (the Mac mini is today what the iPod was in 2001, old technology in a new formfactor for a new market), they produce speciality software for their markets (Logic, Express, Final Cut, DVD Studio, etc), and they grow in value in the public eye every month (new iPods, new iTMSs, new Mac designs, new software, etc).
What we are seeing is Apple diversifying, and doing so profitably.
it's a pity that was the hit, because the solo on his version of "sunshine of your love" was pretty amazing...
-- --
it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Moore's Law and the Apple hardware tax
by
anon+coward
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· Score: 5, Insightful
A lot has been made of the fact that PC hardware is cheaper than Apple hardware. But Moore's Law degrades that argument at the standard rate.
The 50% Apple hardware tax is significant when computers cost $3000. When computers cost $500, the tax is still 50% but not so significant. And when computers cost $100, even less significant.
At that point, $50 for "looks cool" might be worth it to a lot more people. Like esr said, as the cost of the hardware approaches the cost of the OS, things get interesting.
Re:as a computer maker, Apple is done
by
RealityProphet
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You use Sega, for example, but fail to note that the forces that killed Sega (commoditization) hasn't killed Nintendo (Gameboy Advance, Gameboy DS) and hasn't killed Sony (Playstation, Playstation 2).
The Playstation was the primary impetus behind Nintendo's fall from grace. They can sustain a massive amount of financial pressure and undersell Nintendo at every turn because they have a tremendous amount of other sources of income. Nintendo has their game console. It is hard to undersell on your only source of income.
You bring up SGI, but then can't account for the fact that commoditization hasn't killed IBM
Commoditization is precisely what killed IBM in the PC field. They used to make PCs, you know, but got killed by low-cost IBM-clones. They used to make hard drives, and then sold that failing enterprise to Hitachi. Big Blue is still around because they have so many other sources of income, but they are no longer in the PC market.
What we are seeing is Apple diversifying, and doing so profitably.
Good for Apple! I never once even insinuated that they were going to go bankrupt. I simply said that they are done with the computer market. It is over for them.
Re:and I bet geeks pirate it more than pay for it
by
The+Lynxpro
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"2. Games. That is going to be the hard sell. The big item in most retail stores are lots of junk software for web related stuff and then GAMES. Lots and lots of games. All of which require "Windows XP". How will Apple convince developers to write for their platform?"
Your answer, Windows Vista. Thanks to the hubris of Microsoft, Windows Vista will be ignored by gamers just as they ignored Windows2000 and shunned WindowsME. Doing stupid deliberate things like retarding the performance of OpenGL in Vista in favor of DirectX is enough to alienate the likes of id Software. Combine that with the fact that the next generation console of choice will be the Sony Playstation3 (which supports OpenGL), the conversion to the computer platform of choice will be the Macs as long as videocard support becomes equal to the current Windows market and Apple offers some headless desktops that support end user expansion through PCIe cards (including SLI techniques too).
-- "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Slashdot = site for clueless morons.
by
shippo
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I have never read so much utter crap in my life.
The development version of Mac OS X for Intel has been designed to run on a specific Intel motherboard, which co-incidentally is the same model as support by the PC port of Darwin. It's purely designed for proving that PPC code will run on an Intel chip when the source has been successfully tweaked - nothing more. It's just a quick and dirty hack.
YOU CAN'T READ ANYTHING INTO THIS PRE-PRODUCTION SYSTEM - JUST GET IT INTO YOUR THICK GEEKY SKULLS NOW!
When Apple finally release Intel machines the hardware will be significantly different to a run of the mill PC - some hardware devices appearing in a different place, others being present at all, and so on. The OS will need very specific drivers. Also it's more than likely that there will be some other forms of protection to further limit the hardware it will run on.
Don't bother replying to me as I can't be bothered to read the crap posted to this site any more.
Re:as a computer maker, Apple is done
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2nd+Post!
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Ah, I get you now.
I will have to respectfully disagree, because I own a Mac and I still wish to see Apple continue to make Macs for the foreseeable future. It is not improbably, in a crazy reality, that Macs become PCs (and vice versa) because Apple will have Intel's ear, and Intel will have Apple's manufacturing interests; in the same way that, after Apple bought NeXTStep, NeXTStep became Apple, Apple adopting Intel CPUs might make PCs directly descended from Macs.
As for being done with the computer market, as long as Apple can produce value, provide value, convince people of that value, and profit off that value, with computers then there is no reason to expect them to stop making computers.
I mean, in one sense, a real sense, an iPod is a computer; a specialized computer, but a computer none-the less. It has a display, input, output, disk storage, ram, two CPUs, and recently both audio and video output.
As long as Apple can make 'computers' like the iPod, and make computers with the same sense of style, usability, and functionality as an iPod, I think they are far from 'done' in the computer market.
Re:What's the point
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ltbarcly
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Oh please. It's the same (perfectly decent) generic ram everyone else uses, it just costs twice as much.
Stop, collaborate and listen!
Ram quality is a highly overlooked cause of many many stability problems. I will NOT run generic ram in the debian machine I use for development, nor will I in my powerbook. Many of those hard to track down and intermittent 'software' errors are caused by either poor quality ram or a cheap power supply. With windows it's not so important, as you are less likely to keep it up for long periods of time (apparently it reboots itself to install patches now, without asking).
If you are doing anything serious on a PC, I really recommend ECC. There is a slight cost involved, and a very small performance penalty, but it comes with the total prevention of single bit errors due to cosmic rays or decomposing atoms in solder. You'll avoid a hell of a lot WTF troubleshooting.
Now, if you're a cretin, feel free to get GENERTEC's offering for $5 less, but in the long run you'll bitch and moan about whatever operating system you're using being unstable.
CRETINS STOP READING HERE, AND RECEIVE A GENUINE IMITATION LEATHERETTE WALLET CARRYING CASE
Ok, now that they're out of the picture, check out www.crucial.com. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Micron, and it is high quality stuff.
Two RAM boards with the exact same chips can vary widely in quality. This is because the big 3 ram manufacturers do a great job, but the PCB makers do an often shit job.
As in all things you get what you pay for.
Oh, and parent IS a cretin. Nobody cares about your personal justification for Apple bashing. Apple makes great stuff, it's not everything to everybody. I personally wish that konqueror would be split from KDE so that it could be platform independent. It's fantastic.
Re:Apple quality is not about the architecture.
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Cthefuture
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Uh, Apple external design is better but the quality of the components is pretty much no different from anything else.
For example, my iBook feels nice on my lap. It doesn't get too hot and doesn't have any pointy bits poking me. It has long battery life and externally it looks nice. On the other hand my Dell laptop is hot, noisey and it has sharp poking bits all over the outside.
But that's not all that makes up a computer...
The Apple LCD screen sucks compared to my Dell. The screen is low resolution, there are dead pixels, and it has a washed out looking display. My Dell does 1600x1200, there is not a single dead pixel and it has a beautiful display quality. My Dell is also a lot faster than the Apple.
Based on my experience it seems like Apple spends money on artistic quality and has to cut corners on the innards to get a reasonable price. Dell spends money on the innards and cuts corners on the artistic stuff in order to get a reasonable price.
So like practically everything, they both suck in different ways.
-- The ratio of people to cake is too big
Re:and I bet geeks pirate it more than pay for it
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Pulzar
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Your answer, Windows Vista. Thanks to the hubris of Microsoft, Windows Vista will be ignored by gamers just as they ignored Windows2000 and shunned WindowsME. Doing stupid deliberate things like retarding the performance of OpenGL in Vista in favor of DirectX is enough to alienate the likes of id Software.
There's nothing deliberate about what they are doing. Please try to understand what's going on before coming up with generalizations like "Vista will be bad for Open GL so all games will go to Mac because all games are written by Id Software".
The Vista desktop uses Direct X to render the new desktop features, so it can't run Open GL natively at the same time... so, they provided a wrapper, which causes a performance hit. As far as the full-screen games are concerned, though, they don't use the desktop, hence the aeroglass support goes away and ATI or nVidia native OpenGL driver kicks in.
So, don't be sad. Your OpenGL games will run just as fine as they used to.
The OpenGL windowed applications might suffer performance degradation, but that's another story.
-- Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
Re:pardon?
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Simon+Garlick
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"Fairly respectable"? The guy is one of the greatest vocalists and musicologists of the late twentieth century.
Re:Apple quality is not about the architecture.
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wvitXpert
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· Score: 2, Insightful
But the Lexus will still ride better and be much more comfortable. Why? It's in the details, and that's where Apple excels over most other computer makers, they get the details right.
Re:Apple should follow SGI's example
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foniksonik
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· Score: 2, Insightful
And have you seen anything from SGI lately?????? Who here has an awesome SGI box sitting under their desk at home, or in the office... you may have hit the nail on the head but you forgot to move your thumb out of the way. Apple shouldn't be doing anything like SGI if they want to remain a profitable company.
-- A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Re:It's been said before
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killjoe
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· Score: 2, Insightful
More likely they try it, they like it, they lobby their bosses to get one for the office. That's where apple is trying to go, into the office.
-- evil is as evil does
Quite believable...
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Rainer
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Apple doesn't have to do much to prevent people from cracking the protection...
They can just create a kernel that runs on their boards only.
Then they overwrite the kernel with each update.
Result: Running OSX on generic hardware is easy enough for the hacker community, but inconvenient enough to make generic users swithch to Apple hardware sooner or later.
The reason Apple locks the OS in the first place is stability. Apple makes almost no money off of their Mac hardware compaired to iPods and iTunes. They would love to be able to sell their OS to the very large market of people who already have x86 PCs. The problem is, in order to keep with Apple's legendary "it just works" tradition, every part of the OS needs to be highly tested and troubleshot, especially drivers. In the past, that has not been a problem, because there are only about 15 different computer models that can run OS X. That means Apple has to make sure only 15 different systems will run stably. If they released for all x86 machines, they would have no way of testing every machine. Therefore, there would certainly be bugs that were found after release with certain hardware, making the OS no more stable than Windows, if not less so. Also, Apple does not have the clout to get drivers written for its OS by all hardware vendors, and they certainly don't have a large enough staff to write the drivers themselves. It is therefore obvious that Apple's decision to make OS X run only on their special x86 hardware was a move to insure that the stability and quality of use of the OS is consistant, not a cold hearted move to exclude the x86 masses (even though it fits with some of the terrible decissions that Apple made in the past).
Re:What's the point
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ltbarcly
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· Score: 2, Insightful
don't be "one of those people". You can't just take words to mean whatever you want 'to you'. That is bullshit. As soon as you do that everything you say has no meaning, as who knows what YOU mean by 'reliable'. Perhaps by 'reliable' you mean 'lasts at least 1 week' and 'cheap' means 'less than a million dollars'. Of course you take 'ideas' to mean 'the internet version of deas' or something equally stupid.
So, since you don't seem to know what words mean, I'll lend a hand:
Generic: Not having a brand name.
So you cannot possibly consider 'Crucial' to be 'generic' as 'Crucial' IS the name of the brand.
Now, everything today has branding of some sort. You can't buy a box at the store that just says 'crackers' and doesn't refer to a brand. So it seems that there are no longer generic products. So now the word generic means 'lower quality or lesser known brand'. Safeway brand food is generic, Kraft is name brand. This is mostly a product of advertising.
However, crucial is generally considered to be the premier brand of RAM. In most compatibility tests it scores near or at the top.
By "not generic' you seem to mean 'flashy, shiny'. And that is about what I would expect from you. Tell me, do you drive a souped up civic? Does your car have a carbon fiber hood and an exhaust tip?
Re:What's the point
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i41Overlord
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Generic: Not having a brand name.
So you cannot possibly consider 'Crucial' to be 'generic' as 'Crucial' IS the name of the brand.
Really, there isn't any truly "generic" memory. Only a few companies make memory chips, smaller companies couldn't possibly build a fab to produce memory chips.
The "generic" companies use the same Samsung, Toshiba, or Hynix, etc chips that most other companies do, and build them according to the reference design produced by the chipmakers. They also buy the PCB that the memory chips are soldered to from a company that makes PCBs and sells them to OEMs. In addition, the SPD on the memory chip isn't made from them either, they buy that.
In fact, many "generic" computer parts are actually OEM produced parts sold in the gray market from oversupply. You might find a motherboard/memory stick that is completely identical to the product of a big name motherboard/memory stick producer.
For instance, I used to work for a motherboard manufacturer and one of our competitors was PC Chips, a huge OEM. They produced huge volumes of motherboards and sold them under their name, sold them to manufacturers who sold them under their own names, and also produced boards that were sold under "house" names like Tiger Direct or even by smaller retailers under the term "generic". Yet they were all produced on the same assembly line.
Slashdot Mirror
I have always wanted to try out on my Intel box and my dream is finally coming true. I hope Steve learns a lesson from this and does not put DRM in the official version
Apple has to realize that there is a demand for their software of the x86 PC. Obviously, there would be problems if they had to support all the varieties of x86 PC hardware, but they could at least try to provide a version that works for the customers willing to use it.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
It seems to me that the philospophy behind OS X DRM is exactly the same as ITMS DRM - the DRM is just there to say "we'd rather you not do that" but they don't take a lot of steps to stop the people that work around it.
Really this makes the most sense. Any kind of DRM is going to be broken eventually, so it makes sense to do a quick and cheap effort to stop casual users but not to expend a huge amount of money or time on an effort that is, in the end, futile.
So the shipping version will also probably have some light protections on it but I'm sure it will be cracked and spread shortly.
The interesting thing I read is that as a result of being able to run this on other boxes, people are writing new drivers for devices not covered before - if the source for these drivers is public it could drive more devices to work under OSX (even on the PPC) than did before!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
and I'll say it again: people go and install OSX on a cheap machine, realise how great it is, and then when they want a new machine, they get another cheap machine, and install OSX on that one. I can't see any reason why someone would pirate it the first time, then go out and spend extra to get an Apple machine, when can get (or build) a similar (albeit stylistically challenged) machine cheaper.
Your argument might be valid if the final intel version of OSX wasn't (as easily) hackable, so people wouldn't be able to run the final version on non-apple machines.
Apple have been in direct competition with MS for 20 years, and they've only survived by picking their battles. Maybe now is the right time, but to my eyes it looks like MS Office is as big as it ever was. Windows is there to strengthen Office, Office os there to make MONEY. Best case scenario for Apple selling shrink-wrapped OSX for x86 is that MS has a new platform through which to force Office down the world's throats - what do we gain? We certainly LOSE PowerPC as the only realistic alternative to x86.
That was classic intercourse!
From the wired coverage of this story: 'No one knows exactly why OSx86 appears to be running faster on the PCs than the Mac OS does on today's Macs. "To be honest, we're not sure," said a hacker nicknamed "cmoski," who said he works for a large software company.'
Alright, I've seen this argument a number of times, and for some reason people forget that OS X is unix-based. It has the same ability to handle hardware that all other unixen do.
In the above statements, if you could substitute the word "Linux" or "NetBSD" for every occurrence of Macintosh, and not sound like some sort of raving lunatic, I'd be surprised.
I don't understand how Linx and xBSDs can be expected to "run everywhere" on everything, yet, for some reason OS X, a very pretty GUI that is supported by the same technology as the other Unixes, is excluded from that. It just mystifies me.
Maybe it's just anti-Mac zealotry.
Reeses
Not really. These are x86 chips made by Intel themselves, so the only thing your mac hardware premium (and don't try and claim it doesn't exist) is going on is the software and the pretty boxes. It's more like reflashing your video card to behave like a more expensive model, something many of us here applaud.
I am trolling
This way Apple can make money by selling legitimate copies of OS X to the geek/hacker/developer community, and not have to worry about fully supporting the operating system for the average computer user. This version would, after all, be for "development purposes only".
It would also have a legitimate purpose for Apple, too: It would further encourage software development for the company's MacIntel line.
The hacker/geek community gets to build their own gray box OS X systems, and Apple still makes most of its money with average computer users through its hardware. Furthermore, more software is developed by independent programmers. Everybody wins.
They can buy Apple hardware right now if they want, but they don't. And they still won't in your scenario. Why? Same reason as today: because they'll take one look at the price and buy a Dell instead.
Rampant pirate copies of OS X will not change that.
Free Hans!
Any OS will be more reliable, secure, and just plain work better if it can be tweaked carefully for the exact hardware configuration it's running on. Linux and Unix allow anyone, including the end user, to customize their configuration to the exact hardware it's running on. It's not exactly easy though, is it?
Apple takes the opposite tack to achieve the same end result--rather than complete freedom to customize the software, they strictly limit the hardware.
Either way, the end result is a product in which the software and hardware are closely matched. Apple's way produces a much more limited set of final products, but at very little effort to the end user. Linux provides a lot more freedom, but at considerable cost to the user in terms of expertise or time.
But Microsoft tries to have it both ways. In order to realize the vast economy of scale that makes it so profitable, Windows is written once to accomodate a wide variety of hardware configurations. And you can't tweak it or modify it. So the end result is a generic software config running on generic hardware. It will never work as well as a dedicated OS on known hardware.
Finally it's important to understand Apple's approach to computing...they sell computers. Not computer parts. You can't buy a DVD player or a digital TV without its operating system, and you can't buy the operating system without the hardware. It's an appliance--you plug it in and use it. That's how Apple (Jobs) views computers, and it's why they won't license their OS. You might as well ask Sony to licence the OS running on their DVD player.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
My guess is that you don't know what FUD means.
To the ones bitching over the (very very low, IMHO) possibility that Apple will NOT release OS-X for generix x86:
It's theirs. They made it. They can do with it whatever they want. They have that right. If you don't like it, go code a better OS yourself or something, but don't bitch at them - that only makes you sound like a kid who can't get his/her way.
Or in playground terms: It is indeed their ball, and they can take it home with them if they feel like it.
Yes, it's software, so you can copy it without taking the original away from someone, but that it still stealing. Just because you want it, doesn't mean that you have a right to have it - no matter how much you want it.
You act as if a CPU is all that makes a computer a computer.
Motherboards, chipsets, video cards, hell even computer cases are all part of the Apple experience. If you want to believe that the only "premium" you're paying for is the operating system, then believe it all you like. But when you run out and try one of the machines, you'll realize there's a lot more to it.
Apple puts serious time into making their product work, and to making it work, every single time. They put serious effort into having good tech support. They put serious effort into making their machines fast (as that's the number one driving force to x86 today). They put serious effort into making sure the ram your system uses is of quality. The list goes on.
Most PC vendors are bidding in a market to get the cheapest, working parts they can find, and if you like your machines to run like that, then by all means I won't stop you. But before I went to Apple, I built my machine with premium parts that I raed reviews on and made sure were of quality. After doing the same with Apple's components, and finding out it was, in the end, much cheaper to go with their pre-built machine, I switched.
Besides, if you call a hundred or two bucks a premium, then your really talking bottom barrel parts. Apple doesn't even want your money if you're not willing to spend it.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
They also do not enforce any form of copy protection to prevent you from installing on multiple machines because the "trust" users.
Well, that and the fact that even if you do pirate their software, they know that you have already given them several thousand dollars for the hardware you're running it on. It seems to me it has very little to do with "trust" and everything to do with promoting their hardware.
That will not be the case once they switch to Intel. They're already learning about the wild west of the Intel world (cue conspiracy theories, but I don't think this was all intentional). Once they realize that hey, people can install their software on multiple machines and not give Apple a dime, you can expect restrictive DRM and copy protection to be introduced right quick.
I believe there will be a small to medium community porting linux drivers to OSX to allow people to use unsupported hardware, both in their official Apple boxes and their whiteboxes.
And you sir, are mistaken.
You can buy all of that stuff, put it together, and have a PC. You will never have a Mac.
A Mac is the entire machine. It starts with the case, and moves to the (usually Apple designed) motherboard, the Apple designed Bluetooth, the Apple designe Firewire, the Apple designed WiFi modules, then moves on to the placement of fans, the duct work, the attention to details. And you end up with a machine that performs the same function, but is of a much higher quality; a computer that's as much as computer as it is a piece of furnature in the room, and that's the idea of the Mac.
While your machine may run OS X (and that's a long shot; these machines are running a developmental, most likely tagged, build of OS X that may never see the light of day on Macs), it will never match up with the quality, or the design.
If people thought about their computers the same way they thought about their cars, they'd realize exactly what Apple's going for. When you buy Apple you buy a Lexus. When you buy Dell, you buy a Kia.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I would think they would port bsd drivers to OSX, since OSX is just bsd with pretty stuff on it
In some other discussion of .com failures, someone remarked in comments about how the marketing blitz of the .com world failed miserably because it didn't take into consideration who really makes decisions and influences people about computer related decisions. Instead of speding X millions of dollars buying a superbowl ad, the successful companies tried and succeeded into getting their products into the hands and minds of the alpha geeks and was then disseminated to the unwashed (maybe the washed in this case) masses. Google didnt become the monolith it is because it ran stupid superbowl ads. It had a superior product, and geeks told geeks who told normal people.
...so maybe my tinfoil hat is on inside-out, but I think, 'leaking' x86 OS X was both intentional, and brilliant!
Maybe this is apple's way of doing the same thing. If installing OS X on your Fry's especiale pizza box system is easy, but not trivial, the alpha geeks are given a challenge to sort out the messes that x86 OS X represents. Hell maybe the open source mentality will lead to bugfixes headed back to Cupertino.
Once this core geek-ocracy is on board with x86, applications are ready, the x86 Macs appear, THEN will the influence have spread to those with purchase authority, both in the home and in the office.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Apple isn't going to take on Microsoft. First Apple knows better than to waste their time trying to make an OS that supports every damn accessory; card or plugged in; as that only invites frustration on the consumer level.
I believe it is more likely Apple was fully expecting this to happen and have already "written it off". There won't be enough geeks pirating it to matter and they don't have to support anyone who does. If anything it may help them because more people will become familar with how it looks and feel. By that I mean some of these basement dwellers will show it off to coworkers and relatives - bragging that they did it but at the same time spreading the Apple kool-aid without realizing it.
Two markets Apple has to get into.
1. Corporate. How many years has it taken AMD to do it, and they are only trying to sell a product that runs everything their competitor already does!
2. Games. That is going to be the hard sell. The big item in most retail stores are lots of junk software for web related stuff and then GAMES. Lots and lots of games. All of which require "Windows XP". How will Apple convince developers to write for their platform?
No, I don't see Apple competeing with Microsoft. The "Duopoloy" of Apple and Microsoft will continue on the desktop for some time. Just because they run on similar hardware doesn't mean they will compete or want to compete.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So you're projecting into a future that doesn't yet exist because of companies that don't share the same business models that happened to fail?
You use Sega, for example, but fail to note that the forces that killed Sega (commoditization) hasn't killed Nintendo (Gameboy Advance, Gameboy DS) and hasn't killed Sony (Playstation, Playstation 2). You bring up SGI, but then can't account for the fact that commoditization hasn't killed IBM (who has their own CPU and architecture, Power and PowerPC, used in supercomputers, GameCubes, the Revolution, Playstation 3s, and XBox 360s). You also bring up DEC Alpha, but don't account for the fact that AMD and IBM are still around (both also produce stellar 64bit CPUs).
If what you say is true, then IBM and AMD will be killed by Intel and commoditization, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony will become software only houses because their hardware became commoditized (which makes no sense because that isn't what happened to Sega).
Reality is much more complex. Apple has a niche due to specialization in the music market; the iPod and the iTMS gives them tremendous brand and marketing cachet. Apple also has a profitable computer division, selling solutions no one else does (the Mac mini is today what the iPod was in 2001, old technology in a new formfactor for a new market), they produce speciality software for their markets (Logic, Express, Final Cut, DVD Studio, etc), and they grow in value in the public eye every month (new iPods, new iTMSs, new Mac designs, new software, etc).
What we are seeing is Apple diversifying, and doing so profitably.
GPL Deconstructed
it's a pity that was the hit, because the solo on his version of "sunshine of your love" was pretty amazing...
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
A lot has been made of the fact that PC hardware is cheaper than Apple hardware. But Moore's Law degrades that argument at the standard rate. The 50% Apple hardware tax is significant when computers cost $3000. When computers cost $500, the tax is still 50% but not so significant. And when computers cost $100, even less significant. At that point, $50 for "looks cool" might be worth it to a lot more people. Like esr said, as the cost of the hardware approaches the cost of the OS, things get interesting.
The Playstation was the primary impetus behind Nintendo's fall from grace. They can sustain a massive amount of financial pressure and undersell Nintendo at every turn because they have a tremendous amount of other sources of income. Nintendo has their game console. It is hard to undersell on your only source of income.
You bring up SGI, but then can't account for the fact that commoditization hasn't killed IBMCommoditization is precisely what killed IBM in the PC field. They used to make PCs, you know, but got killed by low-cost IBM-clones. They used to make hard drives, and then sold that failing enterprise to Hitachi. Big Blue is still around because they have so many other sources of income, but they are no longer in the PC market.
What we are seeing is Apple diversifying, and doing so profitably.Good for Apple! I never once even insinuated that they were going to go bankrupt. I simply said that they are done with the computer market. It is over for them.
"2. Games. That is going to be the hard sell. The big item in most retail stores are lots of junk software for web related stuff and then GAMES. Lots and lots of games. All of which require "Windows XP". How will Apple convince developers to write for their platform?"
Your answer, Windows Vista. Thanks to the hubris of Microsoft, Windows Vista will be ignored by gamers just as they ignored Windows2000 and shunned WindowsME. Doing stupid deliberate things like retarding the performance of OpenGL in Vista in favor of DirectX is enough to alienate the likes of id Software. Combine that with the fact that the next generation console of choice will be the Sony Playstation3 (which supports OpenGL), the conversion to the computer platform of choice will be the Macs as long as videocard support becomes equal to the current Windows market and Apple offers some headless desktops that support end user expansion through PCIe cards (including SLI techniques too).
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I have never read so much utter crap in my life.
The development version of Mac OS X for Intel has been designed to run on a specific Intel motherboard, which co-incidentally is the same model as support by the PC port of Darwin. It's purely designed for proving that PPC code will run on an Intel chip when the source has been successfully tweaked - nothing more. It's just a quick and dirty hack.
YOU CAN'T READ ANYTHING INTO THIS PRE-PRODUCTION SYSTEM - JUST GET IT INTO YOUR THICK GEEKY SKULLS NOW!
When Apple finally release Intel machines the hardware will be significantly different to a run of the mill PC - some hardware devices appearing in a different place, others being present at all, and so on. The OS will need very specific drivers. Also it's more than likely that there will be some other forms of protection to further limit the hardware it will run on.
Don't bother replying to me as I can't be bothered to read the crap posted to this site any more.
Ah, I get you now.
I will have to respectfully disagree, because I own a Mac and I still wish to see Apple continue to make Macs for the foreseeable future. It is not improbably, in a crazy reality, that Macs become PCs (and vice versa) because Apple will have Intel's ear, and Intel will have Apple's manufacturing interests; in the same way that, after Apple bought NeXTStep, NeXTStep became Apple, Apple adopting Intel CPUs might make PCs directly descended from Macs.
As for being done with the computer market, as long as Apple can produce value, provide value, convince people of that value, and profit off that value, with computers then there is no reason to expect them to stop making computers.
I mean, in one sense, a real sense, an iPod is a computer; a specialized computer, but a computer none-the less. It has a display, input, output, disk storage, ram, two CPUs, and recently both audio and video output.
As long as Apple can make 'computers' like the iPod, and make computers with the same sense of style, usability, and functionality as an iPod, I think they are far from 'done' in the computer market.
GPL Deconstructed
Oh please. It's the same (perfectly decent) generic ram everyone else uses, it just costs twice as much.
Stop, collaborate and listen!
Ram quality is a highly overlooked cause of many many stability problems. I will NOT run generic ram in the debian machine I use for development, nor will I in my powerbook. Many of those hard to track down and intermittent 'software' errors are caused by either poor quality ram or a cheap power supply. With windows it's not so important, as you are less likely to keep it up for long periods of time (apparently it reboots itself to install patches now, without asking).
If you are doing anything serious on a PC, I really recommend ECC. There is a slight cost involved, and a very small performance penalty, but it comes with the total prevention of single bit errors due to cosmic rays or decomposing atoms in solder. You'll avoid a hell of a lot WTF troubleshooting.
Now, if you're a cretin, feel free to get GENERTEC's offering for $5 less, but in the long run you'll bitch and moan about whatever operating system you're using being unstable.
CRETINS STOP READING HERE, AND RECEIVE A GENUINE IMITATION LEATHERETTE WALLET CARRYING CASE
Ok, now that they're out of the picture, check out www.crucial.com. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Micron, and it is high quality stuff.
Two RAM boards with the exact same chips can vary widely in quality. This is because the big 3 ram manufacturers do a great job, but the PCB makers do an often shit job.
As in all things you get what you pay for.
Oh, and parent IS a cretin. Nobody cares about your personal justification for Apple bashing. Apple makes great stuff, it's not everything to everybody. I personally wish that konqueror would be split from KDE so that it could be platform independent. It's fantastic.
Uh, Apple external design is better but the quality of the components is pretty much no different from anything else.
For example, my iBook feels nice on my lap. It doesn't get too hot and doesn't have any pointy bits poking me. It has long battery life and externally it looks nice. On the other hand my Dell laptop is hot, noisey and it has sharp poking bits all over the outside.
But that's not all that makes up a computer...
The Apple LCD screen sucks compared to my Dell. The screen is low resolution, there are dead pixels, and it has a washed out looking display. My Dell does 1600x1200, there is not a single dead pixel and it has a beautiful display quality. My Dell is also a lot faster than the Apple.
Based on my experience it seems like Apple spends money on artistic quality and has to cut corners on the innards to get a reasonable price. Dell spends money on the innards and cuts corners on the artistic stuff in order to get a reasonable price.
So like practically everything, they both suck in different ways.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Your answer, Windows Vista. Thanks to the hubris of Microsoft, Windows Vista will be ignored by gamers just as they ignored Windows2000 and shunned WindowsME. Doing stupid deliberate things like retarding the performance of OpenGL in Vista in favor of DirectX is enough to alienate the likes of id Software.
There's nothing deliberate about what they are doing. Please try to understand what's going on before coming up with generalizations like "Vista will be bad for Open GL so all games will go to Mac because all games are written by Id Software".
The Vista desktop uses Direct X to render the new desktop features, so it can't run Open GL natively at the same time... so, they provided a wrapper, which causes a performance hit. As far as the full-screen games are concerned, though, they don't use the desktop, hence the aeroglass support goes away and ATI or nVidia native OpenGL driver kicks in.
So, don't be sad. Your OpenGL games will run just as fine as they used to.
The OpenGL windowed applications might suffer performance degradation, but that's another story.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
"Fairly respectable"? The guy is one of the greatest vocalists and musicologists of the late twentieth century.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
But the Lexus will still ride better and be much more comfortable. Why? It's in the details, and that's where Apple excels over most other computer makers, they get the details right.
And have you seen anything from SGI lately?????? Who here has an awesome SGI box sitting under their desk at home, or in the office... you may have hit the nail on the head but you forgot to move your thumb out of the way. Apple shouldn't be doing anything like SGI if they want to remain a profitable company.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
More likely they try it, they like it, they lobby their bosses to get one for the office. That's where apple is trying to go, into the office.
evil is as evil does
Apple doesn't have to do much to prevent people from cracking the protection...
They can just create a kernel that runs on their boards only.
Then they overwrite the kernel with each update.
Result: Running OSX on generic hardware is easy enough for the hacker community, but inconvenient enough to make generic users swithch to Apple hardware sooner or later.
The reason Apple locks the OS in the first place is stability. Apple makes almost no money off of their Mac hardware compaired to iPods and iTunes. They would love to be able to sell their OS to the very large market of people who already have x86 PCs. The problem is, in order to keep with Apple's legendary "it just works" tradition, every part of the OS needs to be highly tested and troubleshot, especially drivers. In the past, that has not been a problem, because there are only about 15 different computer models that can run OS X. That means Apple has to make sure only 15 different systems will run stably. If they released for all x86 machines, they would have no way of testing every machine. Therefore, there would certainly be bugs that were found after release with certain hardware, making the OS no more stable than Windows, if not less so. Also, Apple does not have the clout to get drivers written for its OS by all hardware vendors, and they certainly don't have a large enough staff to write the drivers themselves. It is therefore obvious that Apple's decision to make OS X run only on their special x86 hardware was a move to insure that the stability and quality of use of the OS is consistant, not a cold hearted move to exclude the x86 masses (even though it fits with some of the terrible decissions that Apple made in the past).
don't be "one of those people". You can't just take words to mean whatever you want 'to you'. That is bullshit. As soon as you do that everything you say has no meaning, as who knows what YOU mean by 'reliable'. Perhaps by 'reliable' you mean 'lasts at least 1 week' and 'cheap' means 'less than a million dollars'. Of course you take 'ideas' to mean 'the internet version of deas' or something equally stupid.
So, since you don't seem to know what words mean, I'll lend a hand:
Generic: Not having a brand name.
So you cannot possibly consider 'Crucial' to be 'generic' as 'Crucial' IS the name of the brand.
Now, everything today has branding of some sort. You can't buy a box at the store that just says 'crackers' and doesn't refer to a brand. So it seems that there are no longer generic products. So now the word generic means 'lower quality or lesser known brand'. Safeway brand food is generic, Kraft is name brand. This is mostly a product of advertising.
However, crucial is generally considered to be the premier brand of RAM. In most compatibility tests it scores near or at the top.
By "not generic' you seem to mean 'flashy, shiny'. And that is about what I would expect from you. Tell me, do you drive a souped up civic? Does your car have a carbon fiber hood and an exhaust tip?
Generic: Not having a brand name.
So you cannot possibly consider 'Crucial' to be 'generic' as 'Crucial' IS the name of the brand.
Really, there isn't any truly "generic" memory. Only a few companies make memory chips, smaller companies couldn't possibly build a fab to produce memory chips.
The "generic" companies use the same Samsung, Toshiba, or Hynix, etc chips that most other companies do, and build them according to the reference design produced by the chipmakers. They also buy the PCB that the memory chips are soldered to from a company that makes PCBs and sells them to OEMs. In addition, the SPD on the memory chip isn't made from them either, they buy that.
In fact, many "generic" computer parts are actually OEM produced parts sold in the gray market from oversupply. You might find a motherboard/memory stick that is completely identical to the product of a big name motherboard/memory stick producer.
For instance, I used to work for a motherboard manufacturer and one of our competitors was PC Chips, a huge OEM. They produced huge volumes of motherboards and sold them under their name, sold them to manufacturers who sold them under their own names, and also produced boards that were sold under "house" names like Tiger Direct or even by smaller retailers under the term "generic". Yet they were all produced on the same assembly line.