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Mac OS X May Go Embedded?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Dec 23, 2006 01:34 AM
from the stranger-things-have-happened dept.
from the stranger-things-have-happened dept.
VE3OGG writes "Apple Insider is reporting that Apple may very well be developing an embedded version of OSX. The report details what they believe will be the next step in Apple's future, which is extending its consumer electronics division. The first child of such a marriage between OSX and consumer electronic may be the oft-rumoured, not-yet-materialized iPhone — which it also asserts may well be released next fiscal quarter. It seems to be their opinion that with both the desktop and the phone running operating systems with similar underpinnings, 'expansive opportunities' would emerge."
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iPhone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple hasn't announced it yet, so we can still call it anything we want.
Certainly it's an unambiguous term. Everyone knows what it means when on an Apple enthusiast site. (Are there any Linksys-enthusiast sites?)
D
not any more (Score:5, Informative)
The term I have seen lately is "iChat Mobile."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When they launch it, we'll just have to tell people to go get a "real iPhone" a [what-they-call-it].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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Which is too bad, because from a creative standpoint, it's one of the more ingenious marketting naming techniques I've seen in some time. "Anyone can put a lower case i in front of a word and make it their own!" is a silly arguement, because noone else did, that is, until Apple started doing it.
Trademarking should be based on creative thought that went into a unique idea... whether it's a single letter used in a unique way, or a new madeup word... both are creative usages of language. Now, you can argue t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Are we still calling it now that Lynksys/Cisco has a product called that?
I'm guessing yeah, [iphone.org] still calling it that.
Re:iPhone? (Score:5, Funny)
Apple PIE
Parent
What a lod of tripe (the summary, not the story) (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't the first use of an embedded OSX be the already announced iTV [wikipedia.org]? Even TFA only rates the (rumoured) iPhone as one of the first, not the first. And the (rumoured) iPhone isn't mentioned in relation to the "expansive [interactive] opportunities".
Poor summaries distort a Slashdot story yet again...
iTV as embedded device (Score:4, Informative)
Seeing how Steve Jobs like single-purpose devices, I could see the iTV being more like the Airport Express or even the WRT54G. An embedded device like that would be more reliable than a general Mac OS X system, since there are fewer breakable (software) parts. An embedded device also has the benefit of instant-on, which is what everyone expects from their consumer appliances.
Parent
How novel (Score:5, Funny)
How progressive. It's a good think their competitors over in Redmond haven't thought of that, because if . . . oh wait. Never mind.
Not bloody likely (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the same embedded market where constrained resources make extra layering in the kernel a no-no and the aforementioned UI is irrelevant.
If this is true, colour me stupefied.
Re:Not bloody likely (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed, but reading the article rather than the summary:
It could just be a pared down Aqua running on a different kernel (Linux, qnx, symbian, WinCE?).
Heck, a line that vague, could be describing just about anything.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The article also reads like a press release, instead of the inside scoop AppleInsider would like us to believe it is.
I mean, who else but marketing would write:
industry leading integrated model and software advantage
So much verbiage, such little content.
Re:Not bloody likely (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As I recall OS X consists of the monolithic BSD atop of a microkernel and the networking, filesystems and display are all in the BSD layer. It's not comparable to QNX and I would not draw any conclusions from the success of some pro
Re:Not bloody likely (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if the UI was OS X's only strength, that's the most important feature they can bring to the embedded market. With today's fast, low-power embedded processors, anybody can write software that is functional and reasonably responsive. The UI for anything with a full-size keyboard was mastered 50 years ago, but UI is where embedded devices often fail. Apple apparently has some skill at it, because from what I've heard, the iPod's UI is what sets it apart from similar devices (that and being white and shiny I guess).
Parent
Re:Not bloody likely (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, OS X has both a microkernel and a monolithic kernel. It implements most operating system services in the monolithic layer. This means it loses the primary benefits posited by a microkernel design while possibly incurring the "defects" of both approaches. It is not a microkernel design, it is an operating system that has a microkernel. The guys at NeXT were not interested in the lower layers of their operating system, they were focused almost entirely on the user space (and especially GUI) experience, and they nailed a good part of what they set out to do.
The GUI of OS X is very well done for a desktop GUI but it is not directly transferable to the embedded market. What is transferable, however, is the UI design skills that Apple has. That is why the iPod is such a great device, not because of OS X.
Parent
Re:Not bloody likely (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft didn't just port 95/XP to ARM and call it Windows CE/Mobile; nor will Apple do this with OS X. If they do enter the embedded arena, they'll (hopefully, for them) create an OS that not only satisfies the additional efficiency requirements of the embedded world but also follows the same user-oriented design principles as OS X.
Parent
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Would the increasing power of small devices possibly render this argument obsolete? I seem to remember reading about 300-odd mhz processors in these devices, and I know a 400mhz G4 can run Tiger pretty well.
Apples and pears - I have a 196 mhz phone that can barely run Windows Mobile. ("haw haw, I have a 3 ghz desktop that can barely run Windows XP, it's the software makers that are to blame" - not completely).
Yeah, they have been achieving very high clock speeds in embedded processors, but the processors themselves are nowhere near as complex as a "real" processor.
Seriously, my phone is slow. I purchased it to do away with multiple units (cell phone+palm pda) but in the end, I've been walking around for 6 mo
I think they want to be agile (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long time before they switched, we kept hearing about x86 versions of OS X.
The impression I have is that they developed that version of the OS so that they'd always have the option to switch if they had to, not because they knew they were definitely going to switch when they started work on the x86 version.
It makes sense for them to to an embedded version, just in case. If they ever decide they want to jump, they'll be in the position of polishing something they already have, rather than starting from scratch.
And if they want to play with prototypes of things like iPhones, they'll have a really clear understanding of what it is they'd be bringing to market. They can build them, and play with them, and figure out if they'll suck or not, look at them realistically in comparison to what other people are selling, etc. Then if all of the planets are lined up, they can ramp up for a real product.
Imagine that MS had kept a few guys building audio players for all the years the iPod has been out, and that they had built a few generations of prototypes in the lab, and leaned on them for a few years. When people at the top of the company decided it was strategically important for them to be in that space, they'd have been able to jump in in a different way than they did.
MS decides that they have to be in music players, then they star a massive effort to get there. The decision is made before anyone really knows how what they'll ultimately produce will stack up against the iPod. If they had a few guys making music players for years, they'd have a much better idea of how their product would stack up before the decided to jump in.
So I'd be inclined to interpret this as a sign that Apple wants to stay within striking distance of the embedded market, not that they're definitely going in. Apple's not going to make a crummy iPhone. If they do it, they'll want it to be the best phone ever. They're not going to trash their brand just because people keep telling them that they have to be in phones.
Apple cleans house... (Score:5, Informative)
OSX started out long ago as open step (as far as being for intel). Open step became rhapsody beta, which ran on intel (i have some cds around somewhere still =). I could go on, but the point is that I'd bet, and it's been said, that osx was kept at mostly build parity with the commercially released PPC versions. I think the main thing holding back the intel version was an enabling technology like rosetta. Of course, it had been rumored for years that OSX was/is also compiled for Sparc and some other targets.
Now, this is important because an os kept this relativly flexible would seem to have a monumentally esier time being targeted at different architectures (linux has this benefit as well). And leveraging APIs and frameworks for things like phones, video players, palmtop devices, media centers, could produce the most user friendly and functionaly devices seen yet.
This brings me to why the apple phone will clean up, if even done remotely right. Cell phones suck. The UI's get worse and worse. Cell companies charge in retarded fashions for stuff in the US (ring tones? backgrounds?). Cell phone layouts keep getting worse (am I the only one who thinks the keypad on the new slim line of moto phones is atrocious?). Cell phone companies dont compete in the US (at least on price... has your cell phone bill ever really gone down, even with the current ubiquity?). Oh yeah, #1 thing - a competant music player/photo/video viewer without all the restrictions a verizon would place on it.
And if apple is able to go te way of european phones, sellong unlocked phones useable worldwide with sim chips (and even possibly paid for with the latter in the US), all in all, apple should clean up and maybe, just maybe, force cell companies to make somereally good products. Kinda sucks that apple would be at least somewhat tied to current infrastructure, as it is said to be buying network usage from cingular.
Oh well, I'll been holding off my cell upgrade till macworld.
nmap reports Airport Express to run OS X (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know the US doesn't use GSM, but why does that make it different?
Actually, some networks in the US do use GSM (Cingular and T-Mobile are the two big ones). However, historically in the US, you couldn't just take any phone and have it work on a service's network, you had to get a SIM card that was provided by the network, and they would only provide that if your phone w