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Leopard Already Hacked To Run On PC Hardware
PoliTech passed us a PC World link, noting that the newest version of OS X, Leopard, has already been adapted to run on a PC. "The OSx86 Scene forum has released details of how Windows users can migrate to Apple's new OS, without investing in new hardware -- even though installing Leopard on an PC may be counter to Apple's terms and conditions. The forum is offering full instructions on how to install the system, including screenshots of the installation process. Not all the features of Leopard function with the patch -- Wi-Fi support, for example, is reportedly inoperable. Historically, Apple's likely next move will be to track down and act against those behind the hack."
Why is a patch needed? Is it due to DRM?
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Are these the same guys from the original hack?
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Apple's likely next move will be to track down and act against those behind the hack.
Gotta love hardware lock in.
Shame about that. I mean, I've got 4 computers that I use at home for various things, and if I could buy a legal working copy of OS X to run on 'em, I would in a heartbeat. Even at say $200/copy, with the same support I'd get from Microsoft if I were running Windows (read that as "none")....
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I know that traditionally Apple has held onto it's OS because they are a hardware company, not a software company. In the past, I have understood that... they are not a company that is going head-to-head with MS.
However, in the same way that the iPod won over a lot of users to the Mac, what if they offered OS X for PC users with LIMITED support- meaning they only support specific hardware, and they will only sell OS X stand alone, not pre-installed through Dell or someone else. That would give people a taste of the OS, and for anyone other than the hobbiests, push them towards the hardware...
If that happens, expect mac to counter-salvo via software updates -- bricking devices, instead of just phones
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
I always wonder why do this at all??
For the sheer joy of it.
I can understand running Windoze on a Mac but not the other way around.
And that's obviously just flamebait.
You'll only be able to buy the OS with a credit or debit card (no cash!), and the first service pack will brick your PC.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
At last, this shows that virtualization is possible. Apple's next move should be to embrace virtualization and welcome sales of their software with open arms.
An unstable version of OSX Leopard!
Doesn't Apple want to increase market penetration?
http://www.CelloFourteGroupie.net
Your spelling checker should have flagged that for you.
I have a laptop that has about the same specs as a new mac book pro. What if they released a pc version only if it has the same specs as one of their computers. Even with vista i will not buy a computer that is $800 more just because it has osx. Heck on the cheaper computer I can tripple boot with xp,vista,ubuntu. So all that extra just for an operating system is not worth it for me.
It's a very neat hack, what other reason do you need? Stupid apple for keeping them down, what's happened since their biggest strength was openness (apple + apple II)?
That's how many people see the pirated version...
Most of the recent mac converts i know started out with a pirated copy, unsupported with very few drivers, features not working and not as stable as it should be...
They liked the OS, and wanted to run it properly, so they went and bought macs.
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How about because even if i go out and purchase the EXACT same hardware, it's still 1/2 the price of buying the equivalent Mac. Which is in reality, not all that much different than building a top end PC. Dell charges up to $500 for a 750Gb SATA HDD, which I can, and have, purchased for sub $200 for several months now. So in the PC market, people build there own to save money. Which is why PC sales are much stronger than MAC sales will ever be under the current sales model. I don't need some fancy looking case that I'm going to shove under a desk, nor do i need a hugely overpriced LCD display from Apple. Throw in that some people in the computer world actually want to test out apps they have written on Mac's to ensure that they *gasp* work correctly before releasing them to the wild, and they do so in the virtualization environment without needing to pay thousands of dollars to do so.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Because I can build a PC for FAR, FAR less than an equivalent Mac costs. I've not run Leopard on my Hackintosh yet (still on Tiger), but if I can run the OS I want on the hardware I want (saving about $1000 or more in the process) with the only negative being that it hurts Apple's feelings, then I'm gonna do that.
Put it this way: my Hackintosh in it's original incarnation had a 2.6ghz Celeron, 1GB of RAM, 160GB of Hard Drive space, a DVD Burner, and a Geforce 7300LE. Now, this was kind of a toss up between a bare-bones Mac Mini at the time. The mini had it in processor speed, but the $599 machine had less ram, less hard drive space (and a slower hard drive), and a slower video card. That and it wasn't really upgradeable. The hardware for my Hackintosh costed $250. I actually did buy a copy of OS X Tiger (though just one for my G4, but I don't use the G4 99% of the time), but that was only $100. So for $350 total, I've got a machine I like more than Apple's $600 machine. Later on for another $250 I've traded up to a Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz in that machine, a 7900GS, and 2GB of RAM - now I'm still $100 cheaper and it's FAR better than the Mac Mini, especially for playing WoW. And even then, I still had the original CPU and video card left over which went to live in my Linux machine.
Bottom line is my Hackintosh does more than Apple's hardware for less money, and if it ever gets behind I get whip it back into shape with nothing more than a few dollars and a screwdriver.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Cue up the "I would buy OSX for my PC if they would only offer it" posts.
This is why you are not running a major corporation, son.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Apple should encourage this sort of thing. Yes, they make more money on hardware sales than on the OS, but if they allow this to proceed - without formally supporting the PC as a valid platform, they'll a) get more OS sales and b) get more people using their software - these people, in turn, will be more likely to buy a Mac as their next upgrade, for the additional support and guaranteed compatibility. No?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
It sounds like a neat trick to be able to run OS X, but "migrating" via some hack sounds like an extremely bad idea.
Apple just sold the most Macs ever in a single quarter. I don't think the company wants to mess with that unprecendented level of success by opening OS X to the general PC market. There's no question that if it were done properly, an OS X for PCs retail box would substantially grow the platform. The questions are, can Apple successfully pull that off, and does Apple want to greatly expand an already growing platform at the cost of proprietary control. It could happen, though - Stranger things have - like the x86 switch itself.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
For those of you (unlucky enough to be) using Windows Vista, you should be able to use this free program (previously featured on Slashdot) to get it dual-booting with as little pain as possible. EasyBCD works fine with Linux, Windows XP & Vista, and OS X.
"They could sell a couple thousand extra boxes that way."
Fixed that for ya. I thing you overestimate the number of folks willing to do this by several orders of magnitude.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This is really so simple, I can't believe I don't see any posts directly mentioning it. Apple doesn't release Mac OS X for other machines because doing so opens them up to unknown performance and stability. People who see Mac OS X running nicely on a Mac love it, and may want to buy a Mac later. People who see it running on a random PC box, with driver issues and performance problems-- even kernel panics-- aren't going to be left with a good impression. It doesn't matter if you say "Supported on Apple hardware only", the impression is still made.
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Like many other large companies, Apple still has to learn that one good way to make money is to sell customers something they want, rather than trying to ram something down people's throats.
I don't think he meant that last statement as flamebait. Although I see how it could be interpreted as such.
I read it more as : Running Windows on a Mac is supported under Leopard, meaning it's likelihood of bricking your machine is very small. Running Mac OS on a beige box PC isn't supported anywhere, meaning bricking your machine is much more likely. I can understand why someone would want to do the former, but it seems unnecessarily risky to do the latter - unless you're doing it for the "because I can" aspect, and not with the end goal being a stable running machine.
- What is the make and model of your machine
- What are the exact specs (+ extras if build to order) of your machine
- How much (with and without sales tax) was your machine?
ThanksThat's the thing-- Mac thrives because things 'just work'-- it doesn't break much, it's pretty secure, and your mom can use one without much training. If that changes too dramatically, their competative advantage is gone.
How is your suggestion any different than the existing situation?
GPL Deconstructed
And that's exactly why Apple doesn't want you to do that. They want the profits from selling you their hardware. That's also why I'll never buy any Apple computers new.
Yes. Apple wants OS X to only operate on Apple hardware.
It would seem, then, that there are some significant differences between what Apple wants and what Apple's customers want.
Apple would do well to bridge that gap, but for all their cleverness, they seem to be missing this obvious cornerstone of success.
Oh well, looks like some customers are finding a way to get what they want anyway, so it all works out in the end.
I have attempted to get this to work on my computer because it is fun, interesting and passes the time.
Against Windows, alternative OS's can't get significant traction. Period. No matter how good or how cheap.
Apple is making billions selling hardware, and it's smart enough to know better than to risk it.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Why on earth do they have such a huge problem with people trying to install their OS on other types of hardware? Wouldn't they be better off if their software was released and 'encouraged' people to install it on PCs? I would imagine they could take a fairly big bite out of Microsoft if they did that. The way their brain works is just plain weird. Seems Apple is run almost like a brainwashed cult or something.
Apple is worth more than IBM, but armchair CEOs keep saying, "if they were smart, they would sell OS X for 'IBM' PCs. Imagine how much more successful they would be." But Apple has no debt, it has billions in the bank, and its cashflow is astounding and steeply increasing. Why do the armchair CEOs never do a reality check and adjust to what really works in the marketplace? Quality products that are cool and just work.
If Apple sets a record number of sales, considering only past Apple-only sales figures to compare against, then that is no record at all, or at least not one that matters to the rest of the world.
Only until the day comes that Apple Mac sales meet at least half or more of the total Windows PC sales (of all brands selling PCs loaded with Windows), will that constitute any kind of sales record that matters worth beans.
How is your suggestion any different than the existing situation?
The current situation is of questionable legality under the DMCA. What I suggest is an open hacker "friendly" Apple corp.
I'm not sure how anyone can be against this, as long as people know it isn't explicitly supported by Apple, and the people doing this buy copies of the operating system.
Put it this way: my Hackintosh in it's original incarnation had a 2.6ghz Celeron, 1GB of RAM, 160GB of Hard Drive space, a DVD Burner, and a Geforce 7300LE. Now, this was kind of a toss up between a bare-bones Mac Mini at the time. The mini had it in processor speed, but the $599 machine had less ram, less hard drive space (and a slower hard drive), and a slower video card. That and it wasn't really upgradeable.
And a BMW M5 probably costs more than a 20 passenger minibus. What's your point?
The mini is a TINY system. That's why it costs more than a standard, large Dell or HP. Go pick any major manufacturer, and spec out their smallest "SFF" PC. Now put it next to the mini, and laugh at how much smaller and quieter it is. And no 802.11n or bluetooth in that price tag, generally. The mini can be had/comes with both inside (no dongles necessary.)
Now go online and try and build a mini-itx box similarly configured. Not such a drastic price difference anymore, eh?
One big reason your system is a better value is because your "Hackentosh" is running an operating system you did not buy a license for.
Please help metamoderate.
"bricking your machine"?
Unless I'm completely misunderstanding this procedure, the worst case scenario is you have to reformat the disk and reinstall Windows/Linux/whatever.
That hardly qualifies as "bricking" to me.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I think all Apple is saying is they don't want poor people using their OS because it would make them look bad. I mean really, the iPhone may be up to $5000 a month, but how cool would you be if you saw poor people using those too? I think they are just looking out for out best interests.
Now all we got to do is repeal all those silly "consumer protection" laws. Stoopid democracy and its "laws".
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
How exactly would you "brick" your system by installing OS X on it? You cannot "brick" a computer by installing anything on the harddrive. Bricking the computer would require something like trying to flash the BIOS and failing. Worst case scenario, if OS X doesn't work on your Hackintosh, then reinstall Windows/Linux. No bricking involved.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
It works great. Cost me less than a real Porsche would have anyway.
Reverse doesn't work, sometimes I can't turn left, and sometimes it stalls on the highway. But take that Porsche and your integrated Engine/Car financial model.
Bug in that logic: its not only MS that supports your PC - its also the hardware manufacturers. Every component, peripheral and driver on your PC is compatible with - and has been tested with - one or more flavours of MS Windows by the manufacturer. PC component manufacturers have to do that in order to survive in a MS-dominated market. Their customer support lines may be crap but they've still invested serious dosh ensuring that they work with MS Windows. Unfortunately, the OS monoculture often means that they've eschewed platform-independent interface protocols in favor of cheaper "soft hardware" solutions that depend on windows-specific drivers. Even the mfrs that do support OS X may only bother on their higher-end products (e.g. the cheapest printers that don't have PCL or Postscript on-board are usually WIndows only).
Now, if you try and sell a "minority" OS product then - until you reach a critical mass and convince hardware mfrs to invest in supporting you - all of that behind-the-scenes support becomes your problem. Linux can scrape by because its got a lot of free labour backed up by multiple sources of commercial backing - but even that has had a hard time. You also have the problem that the vast mass of users buy a PC with Windows installed and are pretty much incapable of installing an OS.
So, say you get the hack and illegally install OS X. The motherboard, WiFi card, ethernet, bluetooth, video card, sound card, web cam etc. in your PC may or may not work with OS X and if the answer is "not" then tough titty - who ya gonna call? Pay $200 to Apple for a copy of OS X and you're going to expect Apple to support your hardware.
Basically, its going to cost Apple a lot of money to break into the "aftermarket OS" market - something that Jobs has already tried and failed at once (NeXTStep) and which, even if successful, would risk eroding Apple's hardware sales.
Bottom line - the MS Monoculture means that there is no "aftermarket OS" market (see: BeOS, NeXTStep, Netware). Even the Linux movement is having an uphill struggle giving away a desktop operating system (not so much in the internet server market, but what with the whole Internet being built on free *nix-oriented code its bloody amazing that anybody even considers Windows).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If Apple sets a record number of sales, counting only past Apple sales figures to compare against, then that is not really a record at all, or at least not one that matters much to the rest of the world.
Only until the day comes that Apple Mac sales figures equal 50% or more of the total Windows PC sales (of all brands selling PCs loaded with Windows), will that constitute any kind of sales record that really matters and will really grab the public's attention.
They would probably lose money unless they charged $300 per copy of the OS.
Apple spends much less on R&D than, say, Microsoft. Furthermore, a large part of their software isn't even developed by them but taken from the open source community.
I'd guess there is probably much less actual R&D effort and much less actual development cost for each OS X release than RedHat puts into each release of RHEL.
Further to the other responses on this - I think you're also omitting something else from your calculations - the cost of your own time.
With a Mini, you buy it and plug it in.
With a home built system, you have to make a plan, source all the parts, build it, and in this case hack about with the OS to get it to install. All this is going to take you time, and I doubt many people consider that their own time is free.
What? The apple //c I owned had uart on board that would not handle anything but a 300 baud modem, and if you bought a hayes a USR into the stores, they would tell you that you had to buy the apple modem for the machine. They would then switch the uart.
I had to go to a different city with my box and tell them my apple modem was not working 1200 baud and up. they replaced the uart.
And my hayes 2400 went to work
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Apple's primary concern isn't market penetration at all costs. If that were so then it would have made some sort of effort to release a x86 version of MacOS X for third party hardware. In fact, Apple has gone in the exact opposite direction, and has done everything possible to make such use of its OS on third party hardware impossible.
Apple isn't a software company. It's not interested in selling you an OS and some tools for a few hundred dollars/pounds/euros. Apple is a hardware company, albeit one which also designs its own software to complete its system. It's interested in selling you a complete experience, one that marries custom-designed hardware with custom-designed software, for several hundred/thousand dollars/pounds/euros.
Selling its software only with its hardware has been very successful for Apple. It has many benefits (eg, it allows it to focus software R&D only on a handful of hardware configurations, which makes post-sales support orders of magnitude easier) and is the backbone of modern Apple.
Your idea of getting the OS out there to as many people as possible was tried by Apple in the mid 90s and failed miserably. Several third party clone manufacturers (APS Technologies, DayStar Digital, Motorola, Power Computing, Radius, and UMAX) quickly gobbled a share of the hardware market... but that share was gobbled from Apple itself, as Apple users bought the cheaper clones to run Mac OS 7.x rather than Apple's comparatively more expensive hardware. The rest of the market (mostly DOS and Windows-based PCs) barely noticed at all.
Rather than gaining it market share (and thus sales) the Mac clone experiment almost became Apple's suicide note. Sure, we can sit around and talk about the "what if..." scenarios and talk about what might have happened had Apple tried it out before Windows had become so entrenched but the simple reality was that by the time that Apple did try it out it was too little, too late for it to capture the market away from Microsoft's baby.
How bad was the cloning? Well, the first thing that Steve Jobs did when he rejoined Apple was sit down with the clone makers and try to renegotiate their licensing terms to raise Apple's per-computer revenues. The clone makers refused and Jobs effectively withdrew their licences (the next version of the MacOS was released as MacOS 8, and the clone makers existing licences only covered 7.x). Apple's hardware sales recovered, eventually, but Apple never once gained any benefit from the exercise in terms of revenues.
Apple today is all about presentation. To that end, it carefully controls every aspect of the user experience. Putting its showcase OS out there in the wild would destroy that simply because for every user that had a good experience installing OS X onto a non-Apple configuration there would be many more that would have nightmares dealing with installation on hardware that wasn't compatible, features that didn't want to work, inconsistent support, etc.
As a technically adept individual, I'd love to run Apple's OS on all my PCs. It would in many ways be a dream come true. However, for the reasons that I've outlined, that will never happen. Apple doesn't want it to happen so it won't happen, and I understand why perfectly.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Fortunately for Apple, the instructions don't read like:
1. Run this program against your leopard disc
2. Burn the resulting image
3. Boot into the leopard installer
It requires you to already have illegally downloaded a version of OS X. I'd be interested in trying it out, but I have a Mac. Following those "guides" for half the day while I try and figure out if I can get it to run is not my idea of a fun time.
What if you legally buy a copy of Leopard from Apple and get it to run on your PC,
surely it's your disk and you are entitled to do with it what you will -- including patch
the installer...
It is going to be interesting to see how this pans out
N.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
This is really so simple, I can't believe I don't see any posts directly mentioning it.
Come on, mods. Stating that one of the reasons OS X is pereceived so well is that it was only designed to run on certain configurations is brought up CONSTANTLY on Slashdot. There's no reason to mod it +5 insighftul in every OS X post.
I could see supporting home brewers by stating: Mac OS/X is designed to run on Macintosh hardware and is unsupported on any other platform and may not be returned if t does not work on non-Apple hardware. For home experimenters who acknowledge that OS/X will most likely NOT run on their P.C. and agree to assume all risk, here is a list of OS/X supported peripherals, good luck.
And run straight into a flat out war with Microsoft that Apple would lose. Why do you think Apple doesn't want to enter the generic PC market?
Now, as for the issue where you can't use something you bought at retail on whatever hardware you want, good luck Apple.
>What if they released a pc version only if it has the same specs as one of their computers
what if they spend their time and effort making better products for people who already DO want to buy their stuff, rather than trying to negotiate with solipsists?
>Even with vista i will not buy a computer that is $800 more just because it has osx.
fine.
>Heck on the cheaper computer I can tripple boot with xp,vista,ubuntu
fine. on a Mac you could run all 3 *within* OS X (with Parallels). so what?
>So all that extra just for an operating system is not worth it for me.
fine. OS X isn't an "extra" OS to me, it's the OS I actually want. so I buy it. it seems you don't want to buy it (or only want to buy it on your own terms), in which case I suggest you continue with all your non-Mac-OS-X-buying-activies as normal.
This report is about installing OS X (albeit in direct conflict with the license). It says nothing about stealing a copy. You can purchase a 5-user license for $179, which is much less than the $200 per copy you say that you would happily pay. This is a huge savings for you. Then use the reported method for installing it on your computers and take the license issues for your own.
Running Mac OS on a beige box PC isn't supported anywhere, meaning bricking your machine is much more likely.
:|
No, it isn't. The only way you can possibly brick a PC is perhaps by turning it off during a BIOS flash, and even then, if the chip is removable, you can probably put it in another mobo and flash it from there (yes, I have hotswapped mobo BIOS chips before).
But installing Mac OS X on a PC (which I have also done, quite a number of times) will not brick your PC. Ever.
iqu
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Yeah but that's not gonna stop people bitching on /. and Digg that OSX doesn't work proerly on their piece of hardware. Bad press is bad press. Of course we could always get the hardware manufactureres to release the drivers needed, they love relasing another set of drivers.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
If Apple actually shipped OS X for PCs, it would lose its aura of quality and superiority. The reason?
Think about it. Right now, to actually use OS X, you have to really hate Windows and Linux enough to pay a lot of money for a new Mac, set up the hardware, and switch. That's a big commitment, and cognitive dissonance will probably keep you from disliking it. Furthermore, you'll become a vocal advocate for OS X, both because you really hated Windows and Linux in the first place, and because you really like OS X now.
If it were easy to switch, a lot of people who are only mildly unhappy with Windows and Linux would buy OS X and stick it into their beige box. Many of them would likely conclude that the hassle of switching wasn't worth the improvement (if any) for them and just go back to what they were using before. And they'd tell others about their experience, destroying some of the aura of quality and mystery surrounding the Mac.
So, the reason you can't get OS X for your PC is likely that it is in Apple's interest to keep the cost of switching pretty high: it means they won't get a huge market share, but they skim off the best customers and the ones that are the most vocal advocates for their products.
I know someone who would have purchased OSX for his (non-apple... HP I think) laptop if he could have, but since he couldn't, he went on ahead and purchased a new mac, hardware and all. While Apple would likely gain some OSX sales in the situation you propose, it would also bite into their hardware sales. Add in the fact that many of those who would take up your proposal wouldn't really understand why the software doesn't work and chalk it up to being Apple's fault, thereby harming Apple's current, solid reputation. I know people who didn't understand why their XP drivers for various peripherals didn't work on their shiny new Vista machine - and their items *were* supported under Vista, just they had to get the drivers elsewhere. It's not hard to imagine what would happnen if such people were given the option to use a completely unsupported OS, even if they were warned. All in all I expect Apple would end up with a net loss if they go that route.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
I take it you missed out on the new that last quarter's results were one of the best that Apple's had in its history. Sounds like they're doing rather well at selling "something [that] they want."
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Not free, but many people, especially on Slashdot, ENJOY working on computers. There are many would would buy a box of parts to put it together even if the cost was the same.
The other thing, and what most "time is not free" arguments neglect, is that MOST people have a surplus of time. I don't spend my time concentrating on my dollar box where a fixed rate pops out for every minute I keep focused. Instead I work an 40 hour week, come home, and have around 8 hours per day of "whatever" time that most likely is NOT going to develop any cash surplus on it's own. Some people kill that time watching TV, some people sleep more, some people go out and have fun, and some others use that time to save money that they'd otherwise not want to spend.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Can modern virtualization products like VMWare run OSX as a guest OS now that it is x86-compatible? If so it seems like that would be a much easier way to go.
It's funny how Corporations think that they can control their customers with an iron fist weilding a +20 vicious mace of slaughter, and then when someone goes and slightly modifies their product to do what consumers actually *want* (oh, like say, drag racers, or the MP3 format), they get all pissy about it.
We're terribly sorry for doing something better than you. We really are.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Read the reports from IDC and Gartner - not to mention Apple's own earnings calls. The iPod does have a "halo effect". People that are often interested in the iPod but not the Mac. They walk into an Apple Store and are exposed to the Mac. This has an impact on them. While they may not buy one immediately, they are now considering them with a purchase often following (when they need a new computer).
In addition, I cannot buy a Mac in the specification I want. That doesn't mean that my requirements are wild or unrealistic, but if I already have a monitor then I have only two choices - the Mac Pro (which at the very cheapest is £1,699.00) or the Mac Mini (which at the best specified is £639.00).
Unless I'm missing something, I have a £1060 price gap which cannot be satisfied.
If I want a 750GB hard-drive, reasonably fast processor, 2GB of RAM, use my existing monitor and a good enough graphics card to run bootcamp and some games then I'm SOL unless I plump for the Mac Pro.
I don't care about Apple opening up their operating system, but a few extra choices on the desktop would be nice.
(side note, the cheapest Mac laptop is £699. It may be better specified than a Dell at the same price but the average student can get away with a £399 laptop without a problem. Again, it comes down to a big hole in the choices)
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How people argue that a hacked OS X on a cheat Windows computer will be so much better value for the buck for playing WoW. You could just play WoW on Windows too, with even better performance and even less hassle setting it up, because you don't need to hack Windows to run on your cheap rig. Really, what a stupid argument. If people started putting a hacked OS X on a really highend machine, in order to get more work done, then that would be something to think about. Instead people are buying Macs because they have a hard time getting 8-core 3GHz machines with 16GB of RAM anywhere else. Face it, Linux-people, Apple isn't going to open up the platform, defying all the benefits of a closed architecture, for the sake of letting you play with OS X on your 5 year old leftovers box. Not going to happen.
You guys released a Windows port of Safari 3 so that we can develop Web2.0 apps that will run on iPhone, right? So, if you won't release an OS X capable of running on generic x86/x86-64 hardware, could you at least release a version that will run inside of Virtual PC or VMWare, so we can work on developing software for your platform without having to go out and buy a lot of hardware? I think it'd benefit you if you had more developers, developers, developers, developers making things for your user base. True, I'm sure you'd rather sell all those developers a Mac Pro, but that's just one sale as opposed to potentially thousands of sales to Macheads who need to run an app that only runs on Windows if only we could be bothered to port it, and virtual machines would be very helpful in doing that.
If you area computer professional, and you build your own computer, then the final cost of the computer you built is far more than off the shelf, once you add in your labor cost. Unless, maybe, you are a burger flipper. My tiem is really valuable, and I don't like to waste time, money, or get distracted And you also don't factor in parts QC- the cost of researching and choosing reliable components- one of the things Apple does so well. What you practice is false economy- like my Mom who used to drive and extra 15 mils to save fifteen cents. Or the person who buys the cheapest, only to have the cheapie break down after two weeks.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
I'm not sure that "most" people have a surplus of time? But then... your average Slashdot reader might ;)
http://finance.google.ca/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AAAPL
Yup, these guys really don't know how to make money. You tell'em bro!
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.
I never trust a hack that isn't documented - that means source level patch, at least. I assume at the bootloader level it means throwing in something from Darwin that expects BIOS rather than EFI, like the source level modifications for Tiger before 10.4.9 (though would it be possible to just use TianoCore's EFI simulator?); then the kernel proper needs to have, erm, what changes? Why is my Leopard GM mach_kernel so different from the patched binary? Reads from custom chips that assist in decrypting essential binaries or confirm we're running on a real Mac are implemented via kext, no?
A brief look at the osx86 scene suggests that it comprises about half a dozen excellent but secretive hackers and a torrent of relatively clueless followers; there are no individuals interested in studying what's going on with the aim of encouraging auditing/improvement. Add this to the fact that osx86forums appeared to have been created with the aim of being consumed for profit and turned into the InsanelyMac forums, and I feel very uneasy with lack of answers as to who the interested/involved parties are.
I was beginning to think I was the only person here who realised that - my spare time is valuable to me yes, but in monetary terms it's free. I get the same amount of money per day/week/month/year whether I spend every night out with friends, watching TV, playing games, researching and building a PC or staring at the wall.
Unless you take unpaid time off work to do stuff, time is not money. (It's actually far more precious, but for an entirely different reason that has nothing to do with cash)
I spend time to save money and vice versa, depending on which I value more in that context. I have a dishwasher, washing machine, etc which cost money to buy and run in order to save time I would otherwise have to spend on household chores. I will spend time researching things in order to save money on the things that I buy - I have bought myself one PC so far in my life. Every subsequent PC has been an upgrade to my current one. It's cheaper than buying a whole new machine but takes a little longer, which is fine by me.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I don't want to be critical.. but my 3 year old IBM Thinkpad has a uniform display brightness & color, better battery life, larger keyboard, won't cook your lap, and a bonus right mouse button. Compared to the Macbook Pro it's "more professional" in many ways except CPU and disk i/o.
Yes, I own a Mac - and I'd be happy if the screen was just uniform in brightness and the keyboard was a smidgen larger.
Perhaps that's why people want a hackintosh?
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Because you have a monitor, you can't buy an iMac? Are you kidding? I had TWO lcd monitors, I use one as a second display on my iMac, and the other for my Linux machine.
The people in Apple's target market want a computer that "just works", is easy to use, and looks pretty. As it happens, that is exactly what Apple sells, and that is why Apple is doing quite well. So it's not very clear what your point is.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
When you look at all the time and effort you are going to expend on your computer in its lifetime, quibbling over a few dollars on the purchase price makes little sense. "Cheap" is not necessarily a virtue when you're talking about tools.
Your statement about Apple's sales is less and less true every day. Look at the trends.
Apple does not force you to buy their display. Feel free to plug in your ugly Dell.
I think that Apple's recent success all by itself refutes most of what you are saying.
I am a registered ADC developer and so I had access to all the seeds. That was a god send for dealing with the new 64-bit Objective-C runtime but I also figured that since I had the seeds, well, why not see how compatible Leopard is with non-Apple hardware.
There are legit reasons to do it. For instance, a base Darwin system can be made out of entirely open source software. Until you start decrypting binaries or (given the DMCA) tell people how to do it, you're not breaking the law. Running binaries you compile yourself is also not breaking the law nor the license.
So I did some research into it and looked at the various hacked kernels that are out there as well as some of the available source patches. After doing some research on it I realized that a good bulk of the typical kernel patch is due to lack of the "/efi" node in the device tree. Well, boot-132 (the non-EFI bootloader) is open source and after a bit of hacking I modified it to look for the ACPI and SMBIOS tables and put them in the appropriate sub-nodes of the efi node.
Assuming the right processor (e.g. Core or Core 2) that's enough to get any kernel Apple has ever made to boot without modifying the binary or recompiling from source. Unfortunately I used a P4 as a test rig so I had to do a tiny bit of hacking. It's pretty easy since the source is available so you can just fix it and recompile. Or if the source isn't available (e.g. source for Leopard isn't yet) you can still quite easily patch the machine code to ignore the processor family.
Once you've got that the only thing between you and OS X is a way to get the kernel to decrypt the binaries. Amit Singh has illustrated the magic poem which is actually not the decryption but instead a secondary protection mechanism. In some earlier Leopard seeds, that mechanism didn't appear to be used anymore. The real decryption is two AES keys, also widely available. The interface between the kernel and the decryption kernel extension is public. That is, there's a function pointer variable in the source and basically you just write a function that does the AES decryption and then set the appropriate function pointer to the address of your function from your kernel extension's initialization routine. That's all I'll give away on a public forum though. And I'm not giving anything away here, it's public knowledge, right in the source code to xnu.
I post here not to tell people how to hack it but to illustrate that it's not some difficult scheme. I have a good laugh reading the various osx86 forums about how cool these hackers must be if they can crack OS X. It's not as if Apple tried to make it hard. I mean, putting the decryption hook in "Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext" is a pretty dead giveaway. The other good meme is the thought that the methods of hacking need to be kept secret so Apple doesn't figure them out. Believe me, if I can reverse engineer the hacks then I'm quite certain Apple has several people who can. If they even want to. I see no indication that anyone at Apple is trying to prevent hacks. They write code that works on their machines. If it happens to work on other x86 machines, it does. They haven't ever done anything to stop it.
Further to the other responses on this - I think you're also omitting something else from your calculations - the cost of your own time.
He didn't omit it - if he's got the spare cycles to sit around building computers in order to save a couple of hundred bucks, his time is pretty close to worthless.
many (most?) mac users buy for more than just the mac OS. If they sold the OS by itself I do not think it would canibalize the sales of mac hardware to any great degree. It would get a lot of people to switch over and those sales are pure profit. The OS is already a sunk cost so any additional sales are pure profit.
You dumb ass jack ass who has poor language skills mods me a troll? My comment is in line with others who welcome Leopard running on PC hardware. My comment is obviously a "Wow!", as in cool. Phooey on you...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This entire series of threads is irrelevant.
Apple just doesn't give a crap if somebody else's hardware is capable of running OS X.
Whoopdeedoo! We can run OS X on any damn hardware, just as long as we don't expect any support.
Big shit!
What makes OS X OS X is the post hardware sale's software support.
Its all about the updates. 10.4.1 through 10 came for FREE over the time I've had it installed.
Meanwhile, I don't dare let Microsoft update anything since SP2 because something will get fucked up.
If you don't want to pay virtually the same for hardware, go fuck yourself.
And don't bitch that this or that component might cost less using Linux or Windows.
If you think so, then go ahead and BUY IT. And live with the consequences.
Apple doesn't give a flying fuck, and neither do I.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Big deal. You can torch the grill off a Rolls-Royce and weld it to the front of a rusty Ford Pinto, too.
If apple had a mid-range head less desktop then less people will need to used a hacked mac os x and would buy a apple system.
Apple needs to drop the laptop in a desktop idea and come out with a real desktop not a $2200+ workstation with high cost FB-dimms and dual cpus or a over priced mini with slow laptop parts and a higher price tag a desktop with on board video and pci-e slots can fit in with lower priced mini for people who want one below it and it fitting in between the mini and the mac pro.
Quibbling over a few dollars? The point is that Apple charges more than it's worth, depriving you of money to increase their profit margin. How is cheap not a virtue when comparing one core 2 duo to an identical core 2 duo, and the first costs $100 more? That's the only difference!
Continuing my series of new Mac ads......
[fade in from black]
[hip charismatic kid]: Hi, I'm a Mac....
[middle-aged, sorta nerdy guy]: And I'm a P.C......
[deformed little creature that would make Dr. Frankenstein wince]: And I'm their bastard love-child.....please....kill me....[creature gurgles and a wisp of smoke escapes an ill-fitting seam in it's neck]
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Business plan:
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Read post titled "Leopard just as easy if not easier to hack" please. When did Apple get all pissy?
Has the installation process evolved to something a bit less mysterious than sendmail.cf
Last time I tried installing it I gave up after 5 days.
Aside from the 'cool factor' why do i care? I wouldn't want to rely on a cracked OS for daily life. Its bad enough having to rely on a 'modern OS' as it is.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Unless of course, Apple started making their own hardware sometimes in the last hour.
"How about because even if i go out and purchase the EXACT same hardware, it's still 1/2 the price of buying the equivalent Mac. Which is in reality, not all that much different than building a top end PC. Dell charges up to $500 for a 750Gb SATA HDD, which I can, and have, purchased for sub $200 for several months now."
Which is why I bought a macbook... you can't build a laptop like it and the Dell equivalent is NOT that much cheaper (if it is at all). I won't touch a Toshiba or Compaq/HP (too much ill will in those brands as well) and Lenovo/IBM laptops fail me because I refuse to use the nub on the keyboard. Sony and Alienware(though technically Dell now) are more expensive than anyone.
As for desktop lines, I'd probably only consider a Mini or Pro. The mini is much like a laptop in that the form factor alone precludes it from being classed with any other machine. It's awesomely cheap for it's size. And the Pro is just that, a pro machine, basically server class hardware and you do get what you pay for.
Oh, and if you're worried about the price of hard drive upgrades, you might consider that the hard drive and RAM (typically where the 'bend over' point of hardware sales are for the big companies) are user replaceable with those cheaper versions you mention.
OSX is a phenomenal OS, and I've run it on both my dell 700m notebook and my intel iMac. There are a few things I prefer in windows and the iMac runs both windows and OSX MUCH better then the 700m (despite the 700m having twice as much ram and an equal processor speed). It is cool to boot up in to OSX on a dell computer though, it certainly isn't plug and play and requires quite a bit of tweaking, fine tuning, and what some would consider hacking (oh no a linux like command prompt!)
Someone mentioned the "MS monoculture." Assuming I understand that term, we can construct a model in the following way:
Apple - hardware monoculture, operating system monoculture, software polyculture
Microsoft - hardware polyculture, operating system monoculture, software polyculture
In this light, let's look at open source or free operating systems:
FOSS/F/OSS - hardware polyculture, operating system polyculture, software polyculture
Interestingly, I like the idea of hardware monoculture or limited polyculture (oligoculture). The crap PC hardware that bluescreens is what gives Windows a bad name, because if you install Windows XP on quality hardware, you will never see the blue screen. Similarly, I've seen such hardware freeze BSDs and crash Linuxes.
Really I wish there were more people out there who could tell the difference between a crap product and a good product, and recognize that with economies of scale, a good product will cost as little as a crap product within a year of production.
I don't like Apple. They're smug, unethical, bad for backward compatibility, and their hardware is often extremely unreliable. Compared to the white boxes I build, Macs are junk, but so are the offerings from Dell.
With the white box however, you see a lot of power. You can build your own machine and upgrade it incrementally, which reduces the amount of stuff you throw out. You can run Linux, BSD or Windows on it, or like me, run BSD and keep Windows in a VMware partition, which gives you the best of both worlds.
technical writing / development
Why doesn't Apple release a crippled version of OSX packaged as a VMware guest so Windows users could try it out before purchasing a Mac? It would work with the free VMware player and there would be no issue of hardware incompatibility since VMware would virtualize it. Personally, I would like to monkey around with OSX before committing to purchase an entirely new machine. What would be the downside for Apple?
"... pay a lot of money for a new Mac, set up the hardware, and switch."
:)
Pay a lot of money? GMA X3100 laptop PCs and MacBooks are within 10%, ditto for the other models. No big deal.
Setup? I think you mean unbox. Macs don't require setup, period.
Switch? Hell, if you're using Firefox and Thunderbird, you're already good to go on any of the 3 OSes you mention. Office runs just as well on a Mac as Windows (although I'd rather run iWork), and there's nothing at all like iLife on other platforms (which is causing people to switch to Macs just for that reason).
If you want games, use Bootcamp. Leopard has made Bootcamp that much slicker, and it comes with all those shiny new Macs you think are hard to setup
> Not to mention it will kill Apple.
So you are saying that the majority of Apple's current and future customers would bolt for the door if Apple allowed OS X to run (not support, just allow) on non Apple branded hardware. So you, as (very likely at least) an Apple customer, don't believe Apple hardware could compete in an open market on it's own merits.
This is a position I happen to agree with. I have never been excited by Apple hardware's value proposition. It is pretty but the price performance is just totally whacked. If I could get OS X up on generic hardware though I'd at least want to give it a go vs my current Linux desktop. But I wouldn't want to take it in the wallet and trade down to Apple hardware just to find out since I wouldn't ever be happy with Apple kit anyway. On a desktop I like to be able to buy from the wide variety of high quality hardware available. Their laptops are marginal specs, ok build quality with top notch design but sold at such a premium price vs other high quality laptops I'd find it hard to justify paying the price.
I suspect thinking like mine is the #1 reason Apple has been stuck in single digits for decades. They make a good living being the Volvo of computing, but they have had to accept they will never be mainstream. And they wojuld probably get slaughtered if they tried so perhaps it is a good thing they know their limitations. They could never compete with either the quality (Thinkpads, HP's corporate gear, etc) or lowball (Dell) PC vendors on the hardware front and nobody competes with Microsoft.
Democrat delenda est
Flamebait! -- Oh Pooh! Oh Bother!
Where is a jar of honey when you really need one?
My point was that I could see wanting, or having, to run window apps on a Mac, but I don't know of any examples of the reverse. Oh well, back to English class for me.
------------
I'm not pompous, I'm pedantic. There's a difference.
In spite of its limited market share, Apple has often been one of the biggest leaders in innovating with acceptance of new hardware standards. Not having to support an arbitrary base of hardware manufactured by other people allows them to be much more nimble. If the next big thing required a particular combination of hardware, Apple can ensure that all new computers made include it, even if it raises the cost slightly for a benefit that won't become clear until later when they enable features that take advantage of it.
If Apple were to become a mainly software company, not only would they be faced with supporting far more models, they'd loose their ability to ensure that new computers contain the hardware they want and would instead have to dictate the software to the hardware the users have chosen. Look at Vista. Faced with the choice of buying new hardware that supports Vista well or sticking with XP, many people choose XP.
To be successful as a purely software company, Apple would have to compete directly with Microsoft and shift their focus to high volume, low margin. This is absolutely contrary to everything that Jobs is interested in. He would much rather have a successful minority company with a disproportionate impact on the market as a whole than a leading manufacturer of a commodity.
While OS X is a great operating system, without being designed and tested to work on all hardware the user is only inviting headaches by installing it on a PC.
Being indifferent to third-party hardware means looser tolerances and stability that will most likely be below a Windows XP installation. Why should Apple have any interest in the inevitable support calls that they will get over this just to have to tell everyone "Sorry but we don't support your hardware."?
I'm always just dumbfounded when I see how much you have to pay for electronics in some countries. £1,699.00... $3,500 for the lowest end Mac Pro? I mean, I can believe it, but it seems crazy.
Yeah, they're definitely having a problem with sales. Stock price reflects it too. Sad, really.
Actually, what's sad is a bunch of armchair quarterbacks second-guessing Apple's sales and marketing strategies. I'm pretty sure that they have some relatively smart people who spend, you know, like ALL of their time considering such things.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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.
unless you've bought the more expensive "Family Pack". It's priced at less than the cost of 2 single-user licenses, which can be a bargain if you have multiple Macs but it doesn't sound like you bought the more expensive license...
It works both ways.
Apple isn't going to break into corporate computing in any real sense until corporations see a good ROI. With fixed, and pricey hardware, that is not going to happen either. Apple is already attracting the attention of governments across the world because of the popularity of their new phone and ipod - and its not been good attention either. They are quickly reaching the point of not being able to have their cake and eat it too.
I think Apple would be very well served with a box that allows "controlled" customization. By that I mean "certified expansion cards" and a configuration friendlier to business. This would mean more cooperation with various push type technologies and even more integration into the Windows based network world. the headless mac I envision would also be used to pull the game boys off their soapbox - a mac with dual core/quad core processors able to use a certified top line Nvidia/ATI card would go a long way to giving mac fans a club. Now these people can either shit or get off the pot.
Back to the corporate world - the simple machine would allow for service by the corp's PC tech people - allowing swapping of bad drives or upgrading them with ease. The mini and iMac don't fit the bill. They "can" use some off the shelf components but are not designed to be serviced by regular techs.
It isn't about offering OS X for the PC - its offering OS X on a platform that is more "friendly" to the needs of business and at the same time gamers. The fact that Leopard makes installing Windows so easy is the icing on the cake
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Strangely appropriate.
Apple's consumers DON'T want it. These particular hackers did, and only for kicks/geekpoints/whatever -- hey, it got 'em on Slashdot right? -- not for what's in the "consumers' best interest" or any other such bullshit.
Apple doesn't want its nice, clean, wonderful OS to be seen running half-assed and crashing on crappy PC hardware via some hack job. Why is everybody missing this point? (Oh yeah, this is Slashdot.)
Stop acting like these geeks had any noble intentions in doing what they did, or that Apple should thank them for doing it (HA.. as if Apple is incapable of doing it themselves). Porting OS X to generic PC hardware would inherit all the problems and headaches that have plagued Windows users for years. Having Apple control both the hardware and OS on a given computer has a laundry list of advantages a mile long compared to PC systems. Yes, these advantages mean paying a bit more, but as 99.9% of Mac users will tell you, it's well worth it in every conceivable way, especially if they are ex-PC users.
Looking at the UK Apple Store, iMacs range from £800-£2300. I have cut your gap down to £100.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
> Repeat after me, "Apple is a hardware company"
No. Dell is a hardware company.
Apple is a systems company.
Had they been either a software or a hardware company, they would have disappeared just like Digital Research or Tandy at some time during the nineties.
Of course a systems company can decline too, but in general they are a good deal hardier - think about SUN, or these good old zombies like DEC and Tandem. Systems with these nameplates, and designed by some of their old developers, will still haunt a lot of datacenters at a time when people will mistake Compaq for a prehistoric mobile phone brand and HP will be the consumer printer brand of the Shanghai Electronics Corp.
I apologize for coming to a hasty conclusion. (I know, I know, this is Slashdot and we don't apologize, etc.)
No Give and Take. No Exchange of Thought. It gets you nowhere, particularly if the other person's tail is only just in sight for the second half of the conversation.
What did Apple win with this? A loyal customer.
This "new hack" is old news, if anyone takes a glance at the osx86project page they will come to the conclusion that it has been working for quite some time now. What I cannot take it's this "mac user" elitism that I thought it died when Jobs returned and still remains in most user comments. The people involved are not hard-core hackers/crackers, but they accomplished something and in the end are doing a great PR/Marketing job for Apple.No offense taken, I can see why you commented the way you did, but only after your comment. I take this as an opportunity to improve myself and my writing.
A refurb Mac can be purchased (depending on model) for as little as $489.
A license for VMWare Workstation is $189
A license for OS X could be $129
Total License Cost Estimate = $318
Difference = $129
A company can't afford $129??
Hardware cost is not an issue. It is the work involved with moving the application to OS X, that's the problem. I see little reason to support a virtual environment based on your reasoning. I do have other ideas as to why to support virtualization, but I won't go into it in this post.
No, I'm not kidding, but then I didn't say that either.
What I did say was that I already have a perfectly good monitor (which means I don't want to purchase an iMac) and with my, not particularly special, requirements I have a choice between an anaemic Mac Mini or a massively over powerful Mac Pro.
There is no middle ground unless I end up with an unused monitor - which is not what I want.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Apologies, I've re-read my comment and it could come across that way.
Essentially I don't want to purchase something which leaves me with two monitors, one being unused. Granted a monitor isn't too expensive, but when you have one that does the job - it's wasteful to replace it for no reason.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Why doesnt Apple try and compete with Microsoft and just put OSX on the shelf? I mean there is obviously nothing to be afraid of. And unlike Linux, people (average joe) have heard of OSX. Infact, if they did this they might take half the market. Once people start seeing how useful OSX is on a pc they will want to try it on a Mac. The whole strategy of "my hardware is better than anything out there" is ridiculus. If anything that is the very reason why Microsoft is still around. A little competition might get Microsoft to get their head out of their ass and stop wasting time. But for the time being apple continues down the same path it has followed since the early 1980s. Sure I admit they have taken major steps along the way. Yet it seems the closer that they move toward opening their system to the standards (processors) set by linux (running mostly on the same processor for average users) and microsoft, the more market they seem to be gaining. Who really cares about product activation since you can always crack it to bypass it (illegaly, hehe!). And do you really mind going through a couple of more steps to install? If the OS is really all that great then you will only do it once. "Build it and they will come"
I don't know that putting OS X on a (non-Apple) PC hurts Apple's feelings, but it does break the license agreement. Even so, Apple may turn a blind eye for a few reasons.
First, the population that would hack OS X to run on a PC probably intersects greatly with the population that would install Linux on a PC -- on the one hand, a relatively small group outside the mainstream; on the other, a group that might see value in the Apple approach to Unix.
Second, much as Microsoft may be trying to prevent piracy, piracy has been Microsoft's friend, making Windows the standard in places that could never have afforded it legitimately. This lesson probably has not been lost on Apple.
Third, it's a way to test the waters of broader OS X compatibility without expending any resources on it (perhaps as was done with third-party apps on the iPhone?). A Dell running OS X smoothly is great advertising, but if it crashes a lot, well, what do you expect from an unsupported hack?
If the secret sauce is in a file named "Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext," that's at least different from "Don't Install Mac OS X On Non-Apple Hardware.kext" -- it's a friendly reminder that if you're going to hack OS X, please pay for your copy.
I did research into third party usb ralink drivers for OS X while trying to upgrade from B to G Wireless. A list of devices using this chipset is at http://ralink.rapla.net/ None of the companies offer Mac OSX drivers, but the chipset manufacturer does. It appears to be trivial to implement. I assume muscle was applied to third parties not to release drivers to compete with "Airport" branded devices.
I think Apple does interferes with development of third party hardware. Not just the OS, and not just for "Quality Control" reasons. There is a relationship between maintaining strict control and hardware quality, but there is also a relationship between control, maximizing profit, and taking advantage of customers' blissful ignorance.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wait they run unsupported Verion
Like it
Next Machine was a Mac.
I think the answer to your question is just there.
People cluey enough to run the hacked OS are either going to realise the value of bundled hardware and software or live with "not quite as it should be".
People who buy a shrink wrapped OS in a box aren't.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
is support for OSX on vmware. I understand why apple doesn't want third party hardware to run OSX, but the lack of licensing for vmware support mystifies me.
I'm interested in developing OSX software, and I already own vmware (every developer should), but I don't want to shell out for apple hardware. I've paid for apple hardware in the past, and it tends to be over priced, and there isn't much selection (their current line up of laptops in particular kind of suck compared to my thinkpad x61).
Currently I run linux through vmware on top of vista, which I've found to be superior to dual booting in terms of usability. It lets me avoid linux driver and configuration issues (vmware tends to be better supported than native hardware), play windows games natively, waste less harddrive space on a statically sized partition, manage various linux distros more easily, manage complicated development environments and software configurations more easily (since I can easily make copies of the OS images at any point in development and return to the old version later), etc.
If I could run OSX on vmware (in a supported manner) I could develop OSX guis for the various unix software I write (I've used the cocoa libraries and the interface builder in the past, and they are better than anything in the linux world). This would allow me to give support to the mac platform as a developer in a convenient way. However, at the same time virtualization is off the beaten path, and so it avoids taking a chunk out of apple's bottom line in mac sales.
Having a stable Unix base certainly helps, but their products are far from flawless.
While Apple's products aren't flawless they are much better than many competitors' products, and this was true before OS X. The first computer I bought was a used Mac SE30 I bought in 1992, SE30s came out in 1989. I used it until 2000 when it finally failed. I bought another used Mac in 2000 after the SE30 died, a PowerMac 7300/200. They were released in 1997. I used it until January 2006, when it refused to bootup.
At the same tyme I've bought 3 new Windows PCs. I bought a laptop from Gateway and a DEC Alpha based PC running Windows NT4.0 and Redhat Linux from Microway in 1997. Within 6 months the hdd in the laptop had to be replaced, then 2 week short of having it a year the motherboard also had to be replaced. I replaced the PC with an HP Pavilion I bought in 2000. Just as with the laptop, it's hdd and motherboard had to be replaced in the first year. The one PC I haven't mentioned yet is the Alpha. Because it's cpu is an Alpha I was not able to install much software, the only commercial program I was able to install was Borland C++ Powerbuilder. And because of this I haven't used it much, not at all in 3 or 4 years.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Whether it was a good or bad choice, had apple continued with the clone program odds are I would own a clone.
No, odds are Apple would be out of business. Mac clones were being made before Steve Jobs was brought back, however when he was brought back he saw Apple was loosing money because of the clones. So he stopped licensing the Mac OS. Since then Apple has rebounded.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I can't believe a Slashdot reader is attempting to defend DRM and overpriced, proprietary hardware. This is why I am hesitant to trust the opinion that OS X is so great, when the people who tell me such things often simultaneously spew such weak logic.
Have you seen the price of Macs lately? They aren't overpriced any more than any Windows OEM PC. Actually if you compare prices you will see that some Macs are cheaper than an equivalent Windows PC. What Apple has missing is an expandable Mac that's significantly cheaper than a Mac Pro. Whereas with a Dell or HP which you can get for less than $1000 that's expandable, you have to pay $2500 for an expandable Mac, the Mac Pro. Add a second hdd or graphics card to an HP Pavilion? No problem. But the only Mac you can do that with is the Pro. Otherwise comparing the specs Mac are about the same as Windows PCs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The initial cost of a Mac PC is often considerably more expensive as well.
Have you actually compared the prices of Mac and Windows PCs in the past 2 or 3 years? I have, and for some configurations Macs are a little more expensive than a Dell or HP and for others they are cheaper.
And don't get me started on their monitors.
On this though I whole heartedly agree. A Dell, HP, or even a Viewsonic monitor is cheaper than an Apple monitor. Less than 3 months ago I bought a new MacBook Pro, having switched from Windows PCs, and I wanted to get an LCD monitor as well but I wasn't going to fork over what Apple wanted, with a discount Apple still wanted $800 for the 23" model. I've seen bigger ones from other companies for less.
FalconShould there be a Law?
machine?
Because Apple sales both software AND hardware.
FalconShould there be a Law?
4GB of 667mhz FB-DIMM ECC memory for $839? You can get 4GB (2x2GB) of 667mhz FB-DIMM ECC memory for ~$260 at newegg [newegg.com]. I couldn't find 4x1GB to exactly match the Mac Pro, but 2x2GB should be more expensive than 4x1GB, and yet the 2x2GB from newegg is over $500 cheaper than the 4x1GB from the Apple Store. Why is Apple memory so much more expensive?
This is BS, Apple charging so much for ram. However Apple doesn't stop you from buying ram somewhere else and installing it. I got the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on less than 3 months ago with 2GB. Concerned it may not have enough RAM at different stores I asked different employees about adding more RAM. Each one said it's easy to add more, that Apple includes instructions on adding more RAM. I asked about voiding the warranty and was told that even if third party RAM was added the warranty was still good. I then checked the warranty online and it says the same thing. There is nothing to stop a person from buying RAM somewhere else and installing it in a Mac, which I will do if I find out I don't have enough.
FalconShould there be a Law?
What I find strange, but have become used to, is that "Trusted Computing" is one of the things that Microsoft really gets a lot of crap whenever Ballmer so much as daydreams about implementing it. But Apple actually already has the hardware in place and ready to go, and no-one so much as mentions it here.
I first heard about TPM on Macs at least a couple of years ago, and some were complaining about it here on /..
FslconShould there be a Law?
What I haven't heard explained is why then I can't just purchase a box of OS X and install it on my PC
Does Apple sale hardware? Yes. Would many people buy Mac hardware if they could install OS X on any PC? No. Apple has everything to loose by selling a version of OSX that can be installed on any PC. Apple basically found that out the hard way, they used to allow OEMs to make and sale Mac clones. However when Steve Jobs was brought back to the company he stopped it because Apple was loosing more from lost hardware sales that Apple was making from licensing the Mac OS.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm not very fond of iWork. It looks too simple compared to OOo and Office.
I haven't and don't plan on trying iWork. Unless and until MS stops treating it's users like criminals I will avoid MS products if I can. As for OO.org I wouldn't use it either as it requires X11. While I've installed X11, the only reason was so I could install HTTrack, I'd prefer to run native apps. For this reason I installed Neo Office instead.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't buy the whole "we don't want customers to experience broken OSX, so we won't let it run on generic hardware" rationale.
Will you buy the rational that if Apple were to release OS X so it ran on beige box PCs, Apple would be stepping on Microsoft's toes, and MS has shown what it will do to competitors? Or that Apple would see a drop in hardware sales?
Microsoft sucks so hard my vacuum cleaner ran out in the street and threw itself under the wheels of a passing semi in despair.
I had to wipe off the screen on my laptop when reading this, I involuntarily spit some of my drink. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro I got less than 3 months ago. With it I switched from Windows because I don't like Microsoft treating me like a criminal and spying on me.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The thing I've never understood in this debate, and no-one ever gives any explanation of it, is this.
People argue that if Apple sold OSX for non-Apple branded machines, it would kill their hardware business.
Those same people also usually argue that Apple hardware is second to none in quality and value, and that the user experience of a machine where the hardware and OS are both controlled by the manufacturer is second to none.
So, if this is all true, why will it have any effect on their hardware business? Why will everyone not simply carry on buying Apple hardware because its better value, and buy "integrated systems" because they work better?
You cannot have it both ways. Something is completely wrong with the argument. The only explanation why it would damage their hardware business is if people are reluctantly buying hardware they would not choose if they had any choice, in order to run an OS which they do want to choose. It could only damage their hardware business if the concept of "integrated systems" no longer means anything to buyers in a world in which XP is just as "integrated" with an Intel Core2 board or Samsung memory or NVidia graphics as OSX is. People will only choose to buy non-Apple hardware if they can get hardware which better meets their needs cheaper.
But of course, that is exactly what the Mac people fiercely deny, while still making the argument about hardware business destruction.
The real explanation seems to go like this. In effect what's happening is that Apple is choosing to exploit the market value of OSX by setting a price for the OS which is lower than they could get if they sold it freely in the market, by using it to get higher margins on own branded hardware. They are getting margins indirectly, not by charging for the OS, but by imposing hardware costs on their customers. This is the real corporate strategy.
I doubt if it is either wise, the best way to extract that value, or even sustainable long term. The reason is, the costs they impose on customers are greater than they need be, because the margins are acquired indirectly. And the internal costs to Apple of generating those margins are greater too. One suspects the end result is lower revenues at higher margins but lower total margin amount.
But we'll see.
No hairsplitting intended, but the summary suggests we're talking about OS X (which is the OS for iPhone and iPod touch). Of course we are talking about Mac OS X, which is the operating system used on Macintosh computers.
The fact that somebody on slashdot has tagged this "haha" is a new low for slashdot. Considering Apple does NOTHING to prevent you from hacking this software and putting it on a PC, the "haha" tag is completely stupid. Apple engineers are busy making the most polished OS on the planet http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2207556,00.asp?sr=hotnews and waste no resources preventing the less than 1% of geeks out there from hacking it to work on a PC.
...on many if not all it's considered "user serviceable". take the macbook for example: both HDD and RAM readily accessible. I admit that it's a ball ache that the MBP doesn't have a user accessible HDD, but it's not unique in the world of ultra-rammed laptops...
I've got spare cycles to cook nice food from scratch using ingredients I grew in my garden, rather than buying ready meals. I enjoy cooking, and further more can make my own recipes.
Your point?
Nvidia make a single driver that supports the vast majority of their video cards, and another driver that supports the vast majority of their chipsets.
It wouldn't seem much of a stretch to come out with unified drivers for common hardware configs - barring peripherals, such as webcams etc (and how hard would it be to have a standard HCI driver for them?) you'd probably find that the majority of hardware would be supported by quite a small number of these "unified" drivers.
i am so glad i have stuck with my trusty BeBox over the years. now that is some tight manufacturer os-hardware integration.
+4 insightful ;)
Apple wouldn't have made a sale though yet they'd have to maintain the OS.
I dare bet most slashdot readers have at one time installed an OS just to check out the OS. How many other computer users ever do this?
The average slashdotter isn't the average computer user. Seeing as how people visit and read /. on their own it stands to good reason that they are more willing to try something new. The average computer user though just wants to have the computer run out of the box. Some may install games or specific apps but they don't expect to have to install the OS. I contend this is why Linux has a small market share in home computers, most OEMs and even small neighborhood computer shoppes didn't sell PCs with Linux preinstalled. Though more are doing so now, however they don't make it easy to find. I just tried Dell. Starting on the front page then choosing different categories of laptops and desktops it wasn't until using Dell's search input to search for "Linux" that I found a PC with Linux preinstalled.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I found this link (with tutorial video) on how to replace the memory on your MacBook Pro.
A booklet I got with the Mac that Apple includes shows how to add RAM, installing it then making sure the Mac recognizes the RAM.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Selling its software only with its hardware has been very successful for Apple. "
...).
There are some of us around here that remember an era when Jobs was not around.
Apple was dying, literally. It was so bad that MS actually injected money on the company (oh the irony, they could have bought it at some point in time
The successful approach has been making of a PC an status symbol. You don't get all that blind fanboyism organically (in general), Apple has carved an image for their machines (since Jobs second coming) as the trendy item for the fashion conscious or the snob.
You don't agree? Deal with it fanboy, in your heart you know it is true.
This has applied to desktop computers (remember the iMacs? and now the laptops) and Music players (where inferior players that look nice are sold like hot cakes, this without demeriting the iPod user interface, which is a stroke of genius).
There is no coincidence that OSX is mostly about eye candy and less about performance (otherwise they would be widely deployed as number crunching machines or in other tasks suitable for powerful systems). Apple has identified his 5% niche market and they would be foolish to snob the snobs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Keep the logical fallacies coming.
Jobs is infallible.
The rest of the world is stupid.
Did your brain hurt?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Perhaps you didn't realize-
His nom de plume is "Goatse"...
.
- aqk
F U
Fanboy? I don't own any Apple hardware, and never have done. The closest I've come to it is buying an iPod Nano for someone as a gift.
Why is it that idiots like you seem to think that the only people capable of expressing anything but disdain for Apple are Apple zealots?
You and some of the other replies our out of touch with reality if the only way you can deal with comments like mine is to reply with not so thinly-veiled insults and flawed thinking.
(By the way, just because I didn't give a complete history of Apple dating back to its inception that doesn't mean that I don't "remember an era when Jobs was not around". Reading my post how did you get the ridiculous idea that my knowledge of Apple from 1986 to 1997 was non-existant? Get a clue, pal.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I think you and I have a fundamental disagreement here. MS's "crimes", such as they are, are addressed by the courts.
All the judge did was agree to the terms Microsoft and Bush's Justice Department came up with. But only after MS had appealed the original judge's decision to breakup the company. No jury nor the judge had anything to do with the agreement other than rubber stamping it. I fyounhave evidence or proof this is wrong, share it.
MS's punishments are meted out by the courts.
It was the Bush admin that decided what would be in the agreement, not a judge.
That's the same attitude that causes a criminal to never be able to get a job again, and I think it is a pathological attitude.
It depends on the criminal. With only 5% of the world population the US has 25% of the prison population. And about half of those are in prison for non violent drug offenses. But that's beside the point. I would give even someone convicted of homicide, murder, a second chance. However MS has had more than one change. MS was only convicted after breaking a prior agreement. MS has also been convicted of patent infringements as well as other things. In other words Microsoft is a repeat offender.
If you believe it is impossible to rehabilitate a criminal
See above.
...which meant that the user wasn't buying a machine that could run windows, which was stepping on MS's toes, locking them out. However, that's no longer the case. With the new Intel CPU based line, the new Macs can run windows just fine.
Perhaps you missed it but I included links to software that allowed Windows to run on Macs, Microsoft even bought one of them. I knew people, mostly but not only artists, who only used Macs however some ran Windows in a virtual machine. Legally.
It's not "might" see hardware sales drop, they already saw it.
No, it is might. Apple prices are very high; that's what allows clones to get a foot in the door.
Not might, Apple already tried Mac clones, And they saw their sales decline by more than the Mac OS license cost. As for high Mac prices, have you even checked Mac prices the past 2 or 3 years? I have and they are no higher than Windows OEM PCs. It's one thing if you haven't checked prices lately but otherwise it's FUD lies. If you haven't try this, to go Apple's online store and pick out some Macs. Then visit Dell, HP, and others and configure PCs from them where the specs are close to the Macs' specs are. I bet you've find that in some cases Macs are cheaper and in others PCs are cheaper. I've done this 3 or 4 tymes so far this year, and posted the comparisons in posts on /.
FalconShould there be a Law?