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Steve Jobs' Idea For an Ad-Supported OS
milbournosphere writes "It looks like Steve drew up an idea for an ad-supported OS. A patent was filed back in 2009 detailing how it was done. From the article: 'Rather than charge the normal upgrade price, which in those days was $99, he was thinking of shipping a second version of Mac OS 9 that would be given away for free — but would be supported instead by advertising. The theory was that this would pull in a ton of people who didn't normally upgrade because of the price, but Apple would still generate income through the advertising. And any time an owner of the free version wanted to get rid of the advertising, he or she could simply pay for the ad-free version. Steve's team had worked out the preliminary numbers the concept seemed financially sound.'"
Forum post says Mac OS X. I don't think he'd get many takers for Mac OS 9, even if he was giving it away without ads.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
That's a classic bait n' switch. How usable would an OS that pops ads all the time be? What if, after installing, they upped the ad frequency etc? Would the ads be embedded or fetched over the network? Could you downgrade to your previously legally obtained, ad-free, OS without losing all your work?
This isn't an Apple bash or even a Steve Jobs bash. That idea is pure, unadulterated, marketing evilness.
Nothing cheapens a product like plastering it with ads even if you can get rid of them by paying.
Part of the patent is replacing ads in applications with ads that send money to Apple instead.
The summary is confusing and inaccurate. The patent was filed in 2008 (not 2009), and the reference to MacOS 9 was referring to a piece in a book ("Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success" by Ken Segall, according to the linked article) that suggests that the idea for the patent originated in 1999 (not 2008 or 2009) with Steve Jobs -- back when OS9 was heading towards release, making the reference to OS9 actually make sense.
All this gleamed from clicking the sole link in the /. post, spending 15 seconds skimming it, and having a very basic knowledge of recent OS history. Proofreading, please?
It's come to this? Advertising permeating everything we do because it in some way makes what we're doing more affordable?
We all pay the cost of advertising. The fact that the majority of the Web is ad-supported is depressing.
There were companies in the late 90's and early 2000 that were doing this with PC's and free internet. How soon we forget. Eudora or Opera anyone?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
1. Put adverts in OS
.
.
.
.
2. Call it an "upgrade", not adware
3. Patent it
4. Threaten all add supported software makers with lawsuits (planned)
5. Make unfathomable wealth by not actually inventing or even implementing anything (goal)
Back in 1999, there was freepc.com. They didn't just give away the OS - they gave you a whole computer. Applications could only use a 640 x 480 area of the screen, which was a common monitor size back then. But FreePC shipped with a bigger monitor and display card. The rest of the screen was devoted to ads.
Like most web sites today. And phones. And tablets...
They were just ahead of their time.
Or how about an ad-supported free computer?
Also, note the date on that article. Steve Jobs was way behind on this one.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Everytime I turn on my Mac, I get that picture of an apple.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
except for the "patented" part.
expandfairuse.org
Chrome OS -- it's designed to integrate with the Google ecosystem, whose purpose is advertising in exchange for services. It's a step removed, but it's the moral equivalent.
EXACTLY
Let's just *always* give the OS away for free...!!! .... reminds me, what was that Linux thing again?
Man Jobs was worse than I thought. Not even M$ would do this.
Yes, Microsoft would never foist ad-supported software on its users
On the other hand, Apple has been foisting this on...well, nobody, since they decided not to go ahead with it.
Fuck that shit.
Couldn't you just block the ad server at the router/firewall level?
Would the OS fail to work if it could not download ads?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
As we all know, an ad-supported OS is soooooooooooooo much different than an ad-supported application. It's Revolutionary!
I have a machine at home that I'd like to bring back to life. If Microsoft offered an ad-supported version of 7 that didn't cost any money, I'd be very happy with that. And seeing as how that doesn't exist right now....
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
MS *did* do this with their office suite.
There's an edition of Vista that doesn't let you change the background (that's a premium feature!), or run more than 5 tasks at a time. It usually comes bundles with the ad-supported version of office, which takes about 50% of your screen real-estate on the netbooks that actully had it pre-installed.
Google already did it. They don't advertise on the OS, they just take all your information and sell it to advertisers. Same family of stupidity, I suppose.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I think you are missing the point this idea wasn't implemented.
It was a brain storming idea, that had some merit, they did some more research on it and they finally decided to say no to the idea.
The best part is because it is patented that means other OS makers will have to buy the idea from Apple, so they probably won't go that route.
Why did they probably decided not to?
1. It would clutter the "Appearance of the OS". Apple will not even put an Intel Inside sicker on their Systems, to have someone putting ugly adds on the OS.
2. It would be used for headless servers. Ohh a free Unix OS, with Apple support that is easier to use then Linux (arguably). Well lets set it up for server stuff and let it run.
3. Week 2 after its official release the internet will be filled with tricks to disable them.
4. Apple already as a reputation of being expensive, having adds will just make it worse.
5. Increase piracy of the Add-Free version. (You get the add version you find features you really like... Next step is to pirate) vs. now is to stay with the Old OS and not really care what is new.
6. Who cares about Macs anyways by 2009 the iPhone and other iOS devices were being planned and implemented. Lets put effort into making the MacStore where you can get the OS upgrade without Media for $80 less.
7. If you have adds, where apple gets paid for you to use their OS, the Hackintosh use may rise, as people feel less guilty of hacking a PC to run OS X.
8. If your remind people that you can get an OS for free, they will try Linux.
9. Apple lucked out 2001-2010 (Windows XP Aging as an OS, Vista being junk, Linux community taking a hard shift to the left, alienating moderate users) In a world where Apple is the only OS Maker that isn't pissing off their customers, they really didn't want to shake the cage.
10. A general rise in Mac usage without it, and people buying upgrades.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
haha! That was a rhetorical question. There are many a commit in the kernel sources with my name, but, thanks for the thorough and gratuitous explanation ;^)
no joke we did that pre dot crash free os free pc free internet all ad supported. . but then the net economy crashed ads became worthless and all the programs failed.
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Oh, kind of like Android. Android is more an ad delivery and user profiling tool than an actual app platform. iPhone/Mac/iPad are getting there slowly but surely.
Organization? You must be joking..
Take the average Windows user. Ponder how much he knows about his machine and how much he knows about ad-blocking software.
Now think of the average Apple user and extrapolate.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I got one of those FreePCs. It was actually a decent computer for the time. Before a year was up the company went bankrupt or something and they sent information on how to remove the ads. I was a poor student at the time and never could have afforded a computer of that quality at the time.
You overlooked the fact that it's useless for a gamer.... still.
I'm just gonna leave this right here: http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/25/steam-for-linux/
Also, you can get pretty far on WINE.
That said, I agree, the industry needs to break Windows hold as the gaming monopoly. It does NOTHING to help gaming. Games for Windows Live is HATED by everybody who has to use it, Steam and fuck, even Origin are better. GFWL is directly worse than Xbox Live, and there's no excuse for that. Windows still barely even realizes you have games installed, there's a "games" section of the control panel now, but it only picks up some of your games, gives you a really bad benchmark score, and launches those games for you. Thats IT.
I'd like to see a special mode for games which allows you to run them fullscreen-windowed automatically. Default Windows behavior for fullscreen apps is terrible. You're going to force a context switch and a cache just because I alt+tab? Ugh. And it could go so much further than that, it could integrate services for developers to patch your games into the OS, it could launch a thinner version of the OS so that you can play your game on higher settings as long as you dedicated your machine to gaming temporarily, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Sorry, but Windows being the only machine you can play PC games on is a mistake, not a feature, and won't last. We just need the ball to start rolling, and you can bet your ass if Steam is on Linux, games will be on linux.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
what does it meeeean?
as other posters have said, this is just not true:
- I wasted 2+ years of my evenings playing WoW. on Linux.
- I played Skyrim, Oblivion. on Linux.
Those are/were some of the biggest titles out there, and they have always been playable.
OSX is also not more secure - it's can only be less secure since there is no way for you to assess the security, or fix the security yourself. Ultimately, more eyes means better security, period. If there is a difference in security, it's beneath the level that you as a non-security expert would be able to describe.
And yes, you can still run windows 95 on that 486. But you can't run the latest version of Windows on it. You can however run the latest version of most Linux Distributions on it (and there are even specialized versions of those latest distributions out there for those systems).
So again, you're repeating incorrect assumptions. Perpetuating the logical fallacy. Congratulations, you prefer the way of the dodo.
> Google did not use their search engine patents as competitive weapons. Instead, they chose to make their money the old-fashioned way: By selling things that their customers find useful.
Google makes money by selling your eyes (via advertising) to corporations. Apple makes money by selling things that people want. Check the scoreboard, how much money has Google made from hardware or software sales--they aren't in the same league as Apple.
I didn't notice any ads on my OSX desktop today.