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Top Ten Apple Rumors of All Time
An anonymous reader writes "CNET have taken a look back at 30 years of Apple rumors during which we have witnessed Apple's 'rise, fall, and rise again, like a kind of technological Jesus Christ.' Some of the rumors are outrageous, and some came true. The list includes such treasures as the Apple-Nintendo merger, which the article calls 'utterly outlandish,' and the persistent rumor that Apple will release Mac OS X for PC — described as 'so counter-productive and financially damaging for Apple that we doubt the company has ever seriously considered it.' There is also mention of the iPhone, which CNET says is 'an elaborate hoax dreamed up by Steve Jobs to keep journalists busy.'"
Actually, the criticisms of this particular rumour were spot on. Apple would have to be insane to release Mac OS X for the PC.
The distinction people miss though, is that Apple didn't release Mac OS X for the PC. They just built new Macs around an Intel CPU. That's not the same thing as releasing Mac OS X for PCs.
"CNET have taken a look back at 30 years of Apple rumors during which we have witnessed Apple's 'rise, fall, and rise again, like a kind of technological Jesus Christ.'
Or, you know, like a yo-yo.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
He didn't play a lot of games either.
1. Apple to buy Nintendo 2. Mac OS for PC users 3. The return of Newton 4. Apple to buy BeOS 5. The secret OSX build 6. The Apple iPhone 7. iTunes as a record label 8. Widescreen Video iPod 9. 30TH anniversary Mac 10. Apple to buy Disney
Which reminds me of an ancient Minbari textfile I found once.
"We are Insanely Grey.
We stand between the candle and the flame.
The darkness and the light.
The marketroid and the engineer.
Between the Jobs and the Woz."
The iPhone meme is my favorite here. Despite the fact that Cisco owns the rights to iPhone and has for years even Slashdot has people who simply refuse to believe. I actually own an "iPhone" from and it ain't Apple folks. Never will be either. Its just a Skype phone.
Laborare Est Orare
technological Jesus's mac doesn't crash. Of course, the miracle is that neither does his windows PC!
technological Jesus downloads just 1 song onto his iPod, and 500 people can listen to it simultaneously.
technological Jesus just has to touch a windows PC, and it turns into a mac.
stuff |
1. Apple to buy Nintendo
2. Mac OS for PC users
3. The return of Newton
4. Apple to buy BeOS
5. The secret OSX build
6. The Apple iPhone
7. iTunes as a record label
8. Widescreen Video iPod
9. 30TH anniversary Mac
10. Apple to buy Disney
I've used Rhapsody OS DR2 intel on a couple of generic PC's...not the best experience but it booted and responded, started apps and stuff..
m10
The focus of the rumor is not the name iPhone, that's just the popular name for the rumor because Apple prefixes everything with a lowercase I. The point of the rumor is the idea that Apple might make a cell phone. It'd be essentially the same rumor whether it's called the iCell, the MacPhone, the PhoneBook Pro, or even if the phone were going to be called the iChat and Apple's instant messaging client were going to just be renamed Bonjour AV or something.
I actually own an "iPhone" from and it ain't Apple folks.
Yes we all know Cisco owns the 'iPhone" trademark.
However it's just as obvious Apple CAN release a phone and name it something else. The name "iPhone" is simply symbolic of a phone from Apple that can also work with the same data an iPod works with and probably have a similar interface. You are being way to literal in claiming that just because Cisco has released a phone apple cannot because one name in the vast universe of possible names is now taken...
That said I'm only about 50% sure Apple will really release a phone, and it's not just a hoax as CNet is claiming. Personally I would like a more fully featured phone that could work on an MVNO network just as Virgin Mobile phones do today (no virgin mobile phone supports Bluetooth, for example), and also a phone that synchronized better with a computer and was more seamless to use as a data connection (something you cannot get with TMobile pay as you go plans even if the phone supports it). So there is a lot Apple could bring to a phone, I just don't know if they really want to enter that market.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With just one round-house kick, Technological Jesus can stagger Chuck Norris.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I was shocked that after I forwarded a personal email from Steve Jobs to 100 of my closest friends, I did NOT receive a free iPod as promised.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
"Apple will be out of business in X years."
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
Oh wait, that's under the top ten rationalizations of Apple fanboys, my bad. Actually, back when iLife first came out, that was a very compelling package that did not exist by default with Windows, and it did help even the cost. Granted, over time, Windows has caught up very nicely, and the RC candidates of Vista Ultimate included pretty much the same things as the iLife suite. Some are not as nice (Windows Movie Maker still lags behind iMovie), but they are getting there.
Everyone makes excuses for what they buy, and a lot of people like to mock things they don't fully understand. People have their reasons, be it that's what they have allways used, to that's what their tech friend recommended. I myself use both platforms, and have tried linux before, but I'm not a linux guru and could not get a stable distro running on my laptop (nc6320). That model apparently has a lot of weird issues. Of course, even the release version of Vista Business edition failed to recognize most of the laptops hardware.
Fanbois aside, both machines have a place in the world, and both are good at what they were designed to do. Failure to realize this shows signs of ignorance or apathy. Which one is it? My guess is, fanbois don't know, and they don't care.
--nutz
I always thought it would be cool if Apple released OSX Lite for PCs. This would nix some of the iLife Apps or cripple them (think iPhoto Elements, no Garage band, no iWeb, and limited iMovie) and would probably not allow any pro apps to run (Final Cut Pro, Logic, Aperture, etc...). Maybe just strip out Quartz Extreme and some of the other core (audio, video, image) services entirely. This way they could make money from selling a $50-$80 OS to all PC owners and they would have a whole new platform for the switch campaign - if you like OS X Lite, check out what full blown OS X on a Mac can do! Plus they'd reap all the benefits from selling through the likes of Dell and HP and it would start to put Windows into check with there being a competing OS option (that comes with the actual support that comes with a consumer facing software vendor, sorry Linux) all through the OEMs. PLUS, they get more hardware support and they let the hardware manufacturers write the drivers for Macs just like they do for Windows... one can dream.
...backdating stock options??
oh wait...
If I wanted to read every time CNET comes out with a new top 10 list that their employees seem to have the time to put together, than the site that I have in my bookmarks would likely be CNET. But seriously /. if you are going to post every little review they do in their spare time and than proceed to make a top 10 list, than make it it
Did someone say cake?
I slightly beg to differ. It's not that people buy Macs because they think the graphics cards are great or the processors are the best. Though for a time some did.
Apple products are extremely stylish and trendy. The brushed metal look is in along with everything turning white, something I have heard described as the iPod effect.
People also buy apple because of the simplicity of their hardware. I'm very fond of the little things they do like the magnetic power cable and a power supply with a place to wind up the cord.
Still though it's a small consideration in the grand scheme of things. It's OSX that I'm really buying and if I could buy the less expensive and sometimes the better desktop parts I would likely just use the OS on a box of my own construction.
the truth hurts yo so bad mr. windows/pc fanboy....
My favorite rumor appeared on /. that Apple was to buy Tivo. Oh the absolute ellation at the mere thought. But then months later apple announced that iTV thing.
I hate all sigs, even this one.
Only if you buy a computer OEM. Something I would never do for a desktop unless I needed a huge number of them.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
That was a big one for a while.
Seems now the rumors have flipped on that one.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The myth continues because they tried to do Mac-clones once and it failed for them. Personally, I'm ambivalent on the issue liking neither Mac software nor hardware
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Comparing Apple to Microsoft and stating that apple could be competitive in the generic PC OS world, is a little short sighted, and off the mark. One of the aspects that people like about Apple products is that they work, out of the box, 100% of the time. When you turn on a Macintosh, for example, and install the OS (assuming you wanted to install a different version than it came with) you don't have to go searching for drivers and you don't have to worry about hardware compatibility issues. This is because Macs only run on a small subset of possible hardware that has been tested to work with their software.
It would be foolish for Apple to release OS X for generic hardware. OS X has remained stable and secure over the years because of Apples complete control over the hardware. You just can't do that when it is expected to run on any hardware.
Now if they wanted to release an API that could be used to develope software that could then run on any OS that supports the API, that would be another story. Then those that like the stability that comes with a OS hardware package could continue with Mac, and someone else could create an OS for generic hardware that ran the same exact applications (without out the need for seperate and/or conditional compilation).
Apple enjoys something like 30% margins on hardware sales.
Apple (and Microsoft) enjoy something like 98% margins on software sales.
Why in the world would they be crazy enough to cannibalize their own hardware sales so people can buy a $300 PC and run Mac OS on it instead?
Have you seen how much money Microsoft makes on software?
Have you any idea what it would require to write unix kernel extensions to make the 30,000,000 pieces of hardware out there to work properly with the mac os from scratch?
You don't write a "kernel extension" for every piece of hardware. That's what drivers are for. And oh yeah, third party companies write the drivers, not Apple.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I think Apple should get it over with and release Mac OS X under the GPL.
Not because this is in their best interests, but merely because it would be the ultimate way to thoroughly annoy their most obnoxious supporters. Those arguing that it is impossible to make more money selling an operating system than selling cheap crap in stylish boxes would find their fears realised, and yet the world would still end up better off.
Also I like Mac OS X, and I want to run it on my Thinkpad.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
When looking for a powerful, small (12-13 inches) laptop, Apple was way cheaper than other PC equivalents. Of course, the Apple didn't have as much extras (fingerprint reader, PCMCIA port etc)... I talked to a friend who bought a iBook a few years ago, and he said that he bought his because it was cheaper as well.
My point is that they give you value for powerfull, tiny machines. I wouldn't buy anything else from them, though (I wouldn't buy any Apple hardware, since I use Linux, and Apple managed to take the supported Intel hardware and fuck it up completely, but that's a different story)
For the record, I got 10% discount for being a student (so did my friend). Without that, it might have been as expensive as, or perhaps even more expensive than other options.
this article is just slow news space filler, just like this comment
"I'm ambivalent on the issue liking neither Mac software nor hardware"
That statement sounds unequivocal and resolute, hardly ambivalent at all.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I didn't buy my Mac Mini because of the hardware. I bought it because it's a neat little box that can do cool shit.
Of course it looks cool. It's designed as a unit, a coherent whole (hardware and software), something the Windoze folks have never gotten quite right. It's one damned cool package, everything from the box it came in to the documentation. How could I lose?
Nowadays it's pretty much taken for granted that any box you buy will have enough CPU and memory to do what it's supposed to do. The whole package is what matters more. We don't ask "How fast is it?" much anymore. We ask "What does it do?"
...laura
LOAD "SIG",8,1
That'd be because Microsoft sells their operating system to every hardware vendor who wants to save a buck by not developing their own OS in-house. MS-DOS didn't have a heavily entrenched incumbent OS to compete against, whereas Mac OS X would have to wage the uphill battle against Windows to become a profitable generic-PC OS, meanwhile Apple's hardware sales would suffer.
Very true. However, just because the software and OS are what are driving Apple's sales, that doesn't mean that that's where they make their money. They make the bulk of their profits on hardware sales, the OS and software are what motivates people to buy said hardware.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
They wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming the dominant software supplier in a million years by supporting Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. They'd end up going through the same thing they went through 10—15 years ago, when they experimented with Mac clones: all the other companies (who wouldn't have to make up the cost of software R&D and support) would easily undercut the price of Apple's hardware, canniballizing their sales. Since hardware sales are Apple's bread-and-butter, they'd end up hemorrhaging money, and the only way to make up that with licensing fees would be to make those fees prohibitively expensive, making other hardware vendors reluctant to add Mac OS X to their offerings.
They're not being cowards, they're being smart. Apple's business model is completely, fundamentally different from Microsoft's. To have a chance at being profitable off OS and software sales, Apple would have to completely change their fundamental business model, only to face an uphill battle against the ultra-entrenched Windows OS.
The U.S. Constitution needs to be ammended with a "separation of business and state" clause.
Personally, I always find the reactions to the latest market share data funny. It seems like responses fall mainly in two categories: Apple fanboys shouting that a microscopic increase in market share is proof that Microsoft is a dinosaur well on its way to extinction, and Microsoft fanboys who say that, because Apple still doesn't have >50% market share, they're going to go out of business any day now, just as soon as the iPod stops being the "in" thing. The rest of us (Linux/other OS fans, people who use Apple and/or Microsoft OSes, but aren't fanboys about it, etc.) seem to just roll our eyes about how overblown market share data is.
The U.S. Constitution needs to be ammended with a "separation of business and state" clause.
No proof, of course, but it would seem logical.
You can, albeit slow and illegal. Use Maxxuss' tiger image (found all over the place) and vmware.
Like I said, it's slow, but it works.
That's my favorite rumor anyway....
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Obviously you havent seen pc's like the aopen minipc. We all know its osx that people buy apples for. Apple computers are now the same as pcs except for the operating system
OS X started out running on Intel.
The idea that Apple *wouldn't* keep a version running on Intel was always the staggering thing about this. It's like you said "Prince Charles has routine health checkups" and got the response "How do you know? have you ever seen him?"
...how many of them were started or at least propogated -- as news -- by the editors of CNET? The "Apple will be out of business" one that was mentioned by /.ers but elided over by TFA, was certainly an example.
Maxxus' image is a bit old. People have 10.4.8 (the latest) running with their own kernel (Semthex) on both AMD and Intel Procs. You need at least an athlon 64 or a late model P4 to run it, and then its on par with late gen g5 hardware. Search on bittorrent for the latest stuff, also Insanely Mac has some good stuff.
I believe some people already have leopard running on generic PC's, its just unrealeased as their no point in having tons of people running beta's.
So you see what had happened was....
They forgot the rumor that's been around since the Apple I:
Apple is going out of business.
I was just cleaning up my office and came across my Rhapsody for PC install discs, as well as the Yellow Box for Windows CD. I can't quite bring myself to throw them away - I should make a diorama of "stuff I worked on at Apple that never shipped".
That won't happen. It would require the agreement of five people: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono, and Neil Aspinall. Given the fact that Paul and Yoko are control freaks when it comes to Beatles exploitation, they'd never allow a purchase.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
While I don't have hard numbers to back it up, I would wager that 30% of hardware sales is a greater amount of money than the potential 98% of software sales, even to a wider audience.
That's not even taking into account continued revenue from hardware upgrades versus software upgrades. I would guess that the non-geek population replaces their machines more often than they do their OS.
Nah, they should go one step further: they should release the source under a license that is sorta similar to, but subtly incompatible with the GPL. Why? Because that would be the ultimate way to thoroughly annoy both their most obnoxious supporters and the most obnoxious GPL supporters at the same time. I mean, really, if you're going to piss some people off, why not go all the way?
So basically with all above in mind Apple WILL NOT go into cellphones since in this market they are not dictating the rules - the service provider are. Also the cellphone market is saturated so I don't really imagine what Apple can bring to it.
I agree with your basic premise (control). However, that is what makes the chances of them coming out with a phone 50/50 in my mind.
True they do not exactly control the networks, nor would they build thier own or rely only on WiMax or some other crazy scheme. However, as an MVNO they are basically paying the carriers for every minute a customer uses the network - apart from that they do not care. So apple has the ability to have more reasonable plans and better rates and charges that make sense. This is exactly why I went with Virgin Mobile for a phone.
Now the big mystery to me here is how carriers treat data traffic across in an MVNO arrangement. There's no way Apple would do an iPhone that could not do data across a network. Wuld that use simply count as minutes in an MVNO arrangement? Or would carriers even allow an MVNO such access? Virgin mobile does offer web surfing on some phones, so it might be possible.
They only thing Apple can't exactly control is quality of service, but even there if they would simply make a little better antenna that picked up signals better it would be a vast improvement over many phones today.
Obviously a Nokia or Motorola. I know you mac-heads just love your iPods and Macs but please keep in mind that there is like 1/4 of whole Earths population of cellphones out here and just a handfull of iPods and even less Macs.
Great googly moogly man, don't you realize that all of us iPod owners already have phones - including the ones you speak of?
In fact I own a RAZR. I am hard pressed to say I have had a phone I despise more - I dislike the signal reception, I dislike the interface, I really especially dislike the physical aspects of the phone as I find the buttons very hard to press correctly (preferring even much smaller buttons on other phones!) and the whole point of a clamsheel design is lost when you stupidly put buttons on the side of a phone.
I have used Nokias and they like before, but although the interface s better often again signal quality is low, the UI is not great and integration with a computer is primitive compared to what it could be if carriers were not so reluctant to allow networking outside thier own networks.
One thing alone that Apple could to do a phone is take that ear-destroying volume of the iPod and transfer it into a phone. I was trying to answer a call in the middle of Disney World recently - I might as well have been trying to listen for the oceon in a sea shell.
So please, do not talk to me about power and design and ease of use and then in the same breath bring up the maker of a phone I have almost taken a sledge hammer to and at least three seperate occasions. You may have low standards with phones, but I would like much more.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd so totally enjoy entering phone numbers - or even better, SMS messages - with that little wheel thingy.
I think you may have been being sarcastic there, and indeed I don't think I long for a return to rotary dialing...
But entering SMS numbers might be easier, I don't really care for predictve entry on my RAZR at the moment, and I find the common "three letters per key" method to be kind of slow if you don't use it all the time. The combination of a keypress and a wheel might actually be kind of quick.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple did got resurrected.
I agree heartily. The prices are 'premium' while the quality just averages 'good'. My guess is that the AppleStore charges those prices to give the retailer a break. Only thing I can think of.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.