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Nokia N900 Linux Smartphone Running OS X

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the mr-johnson's-dog dept.

Rovaani writes "There is a video floating around of a Nokia N900 smartphone running the full desktop Mac OS X 10.3. From the author, Tomi Nikkanen: 'I believe this makes the N900 the first smartphone ever to run a full version of Mac OS X (at any speed, slow or otherwise). As you can see from the heavily edited video, it took almost 2 hours to reach the "About my Mac..." window. Keep your eye on the time display as that will give you an impression of just how uselessly slow it is.'"

15 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Useless commentary by saleenS281 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's with the "uselessly slow" commentary. The guy did it just to prove it could be done, which is pretty cool. I don't think he ever made any assertion that it would be a usable OS alternative for the N900...

    1. Re:Useless commentary by Cederic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Whoa - where?

      I want an Android VM for Maemo, hooked into the phone hardware. Then it's the best phone on the market bar none.

      As it is, it's the best phone on the market except for the application support; I'm still hoping that comes good.

    2. Re:Useless commentary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Man, you sure don't work much. "...I've been sitting here at my freelance gig.. Warcraft will not work...Safari is straining to keep up as I type this... "

  2. Somewhat ironic by Soulfarmer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I find it somewhat ironic that iPhone's competitor can run Apple's OS and iPhone/iPad most probably will never be able to run Mac OS.

    --
    -Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
    1. Re:Somewhat ironic by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's running it in an emulator. Apple won't allow emulators in the store, but if you had a dev kit and ported QEMU to the iPhone it would run OS X too. It would, of course, be equally useless.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Re:Surprised at the time required by the+linux+geek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do you not see the difference between Mac OS running under emulation and Mac OS running natively?

  4. New word accepted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    appifization v.

    The application of DRM by vendors, to create lock-in and walled gardens for software.

  5. Re:Phones more powerful than NeXTstations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think the processor architecture is also being emulated (notice the "pearpc" bit at the top of the screen).

    OsX native to the Arm architecture would probably be an order of magnitude or more faster.

  6. Re:Surprised at the time required by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That ghetto netbook probably isn't an ARM processor emulating a PowerPC.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  7. Re:Not useless by Haxzaw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nobody cares about licensing restrictions.

  8. Re:Phones more powerful than NeXTstations! by jo_ham · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So then those Linksys routers that run Linux really don't because the functionality isn't the same. Cool.

    The software is a modified form of OS X that they have branded iPhone OS.

    It has webkit, Safari, quicktime, multihthreading, multitasking, the BSD core bits etc etc. It just has a different UI. Just because certain features aren't accessible in the default configuration as suppled by Apple doesn't change what it is.

  9. Perfect Slashdot 'Phone by dunsurfin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I agree. The N900 is pretty much the ideal 'phone for the Slashdot crowd. I was pretty surprised that there was not more commentary on the N900 here - it is more open than the Nexus One or the Milestone, with more features than you can shake a stick at.

  10. Warning! by WML+MUNSON · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The N900 may jeopardize your marriage.

    --
    Sent from my Nokia N900

  11. Re:complain to Congress by pydev · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sprint won't allow its customers to use Verizon-branded phones, and Verizon won't sell phones that aren't built to be "Uniquely Verizon"

    Yes, and Congress and the FCC could require all phones to use the same standard and frequencies.

    Need more proof of corporate policy dictating handset frequency availability?

    I don't need any proof at all. I'm saying Congress should grow some balls and put an end to this madness by law.

  12. How can you read slashdot and have an Iphone by nibbles2004 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    i think the Iphone is a toy like speak and spell, fun but a toy, there should be a N900 requirement to have slashdot in your favourites,