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OSx86 Shutdown Rumors Explained
n.e.watson writes "The AP has run an article that addresses recent rumors on the internet about Apple Legal shutting down the OSx86 Project, with a statement from an OSx86 administrator. From the article: 'The OSx86 Project Web site stated Apple had served it with a notice on Thursday citing violations of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the site was reviewing all of its discussion forum postings as a result. The site has always aimed to adhere to copyright laws and is working with Apple to ensure no violations exist, according to a statement by the site administrator.'"
IOW no lawsuit. Thanks for admitting you were wrong.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Yes, I understand that Apple has a vested interest in selling devices, but the content they're selling (Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc) is of interest to many people other than Apple fans. I think those content producers should be more interested in widening their potential mobile-audience.
Apple fans? Wider mobile audience?
You're a goddamned retard.
1) If only "Apple fans" were buying iPods and content from iTMS, sales would be much lower.
2) To my knowledge, nothing's stopping the production houses from selling their content through another store. They picked iTMS because they liked FairPlay and because of the gigantic installed base.
I don't think Apple deserves to be demonized over this, but I hope they don't play their hand too strongly.
They can and will play this hand strongly, and you're damn Apple damn well should be taken down a notch for doing it. Perhaps now people will get to see that apple is no different than other corporations. It will take steps in the direction of abusing it's own users in the quest for protecting it's own interests. These people at Apple are not your friends, they are not there to help you out. They are a corporation, and *all* corporations are putting going to put profits ahead of you.
I'm not saying people should stop buying OS X, I'm not saying people should stop buying Macs. What I am saying is *WAKE UP, APPLE IS NOT THE WHITE KNIGHT YOU THINK IT IS*.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
When did you get so damn anal?
A long time ago, when they shut down the entire Apple2 clone market. Yeah, that's right. People other than Apple used to make machines to run apple software. Then Apple put their foot down, and shut them all down. Thanks Apple! This is one of those much talked-about "Microsoft moves" that Apple makes, and then people forget about. Somehow, the Mac zealots manage to keep Apple smelling rosey even though Apple walks all over them.
Apple is not your friend. Apple does not want to hold your hand and walk down the beach, nor do they want to call you up on Friday to go clubbing. They are a corporation, and they don't give a damn about what it is that you want. They are all about the bottom dollar, and if it means locking the user out of some interesting possibilities, they're going to do it. This is the only reason PCs and Windows will *forever* dominate the home computer market.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
"You're a goddamned retard."
I'll cry myself to sleep over your cutting an witty remark.
"1) If only "Apple fans" were buying iPods and content from iTMS, sales would be much lower."
Really? So you think people who don't like Apple products are buying a lot of iPods? Funny, but I doubt there are many people saying "Hey an iPod is only $300. I don't like them, but I'll get one anyway". I didn't suggest that iPods are not popular, they are, but there are other popular devices that iTunes dosn't support.
"2) To my knowledge, nothing's stopping the production houses from selling their content through another store. They picked iTMS because they liked FairPlay and because of the gigantic installed base."
I really don't know. Maybe they have an exclusive deal, maybe not, but the bottom line is those shows (and a number of others) are not available from any service other than iTunes, and Apple's DRM ties them to the iPod. Yes, there are a lot of iPods around, but they are only a subset of video capable, portable devices. There are a great number of video capable devices (PDAs, PSPs and others) that will not play video from iTunes. Apple may have an interest in tying content to their hardware, but I still contend that the content producers should be trying to make their programs available to other platforms, either through alternate distribution channels, or by convincing Apple to make iTunes video available on non-iPods (the latter seems unlikely at the moment).
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
1. Apple doesnt really make much hardware, they buy hardware from others and assemble it in fancy boxes, and then sell it at an inflated price. The move to intel shows that people don't really care that much about apple's hardware, but what really matters is the software. If it was just the hardware, they'd be selling expensive computers with Linux and Windows on them too.
2. Apple doesn't have to support people who choose to install OSX on non-apple computers just like apple doesn't support the people who install linux on Apple hardware.
3. You can buy just about any third party hardware for apple and a lot of it will probably work. But if it doesn't then they'll give you about as much support as MS does when certain hardware doesn't work on their OS.
4. Why couldn't MS decide that all their future OSs are only going to run where they detect that they are running on non-apple hardware. If apple wants to play the game of deciding which platforms it's OS will run on, i'm sure microsoft would love to play too.
5. The margin on hardware is margin per item sold. With software, its a little different, because it costs a lot up front for development, but then the cost for each sale is minimal. For software the best way to make money is to sell as many copies as possible. With software, once your initial investment is reclaimed, profits on copies are extremely high. With hardware, once you reach a certain manufacturing level, not much is going to bring the profits up.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.