Mac OS X Intel Build Addresses Pirating 319
aardwolf64 writes "ThinkSecret has an article up detailing information about the newest Mac OS X 10.4.3 builds (which is currently said to fix almost 500 bugs with 10.4.2.) What is more interesting is the release of 10.4.2 (Intel) to developers. Universal binaries built with the new version (and apparently all subsequent versions) will not work on systems running the older version of the OS."
Forced obsolescence (Score:0, Insightful)
Is a corporate wet dream
Give it a couple of days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Before we get the 'bad evil apple' comments ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, your pirated pre-release software can't be upgraded! Teh horror!
what's new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it though, most apps from 10.3 don't work properly in 10.2, but that doesn't mean it's apple's way of keeping pirates away. Since all these X86 versions are beta quality anyway, they're probably working on a much faster development mode, and things break easier.
Then again, they could be doing it on purpose, in which case they have the right, since it's their OS.
Anti-Piracy or simple incompatibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before we get the "beleagered apple' comments (Score:5, Insightful)
And in all honesty I want my platform to continue living - I need Apple to stay proftiable in the computer business because I want to continue to buy their computers. Sadly this means that I now support any kind of gestapo like tactic that they use to keep the OS locked to their hardware.
Hopefully they can find a middle ground but the past few years have taught me that technology cannot build a wall that technology cannot also knock down - it will be a long uphill battle - I hope the FSB on the new powerbooks is worth it.
Re:Before we get the "beleagered apple' comments (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean like the same way it crushed Microsoft, the music industry and the movie industry?
Even with crappy products they succeed.
In that case sign me up for Apple stock.
Surprise, surprise! (oh, never mind...) (Score:5, Insightful)
The point here being, these are not production Intel Macs! Why would you expect to have everything Just Work (which, of course, is the whole reason many folks buy Macs in the first place) - heck, you can only get one of these systems if you're an ADC member! Remember, Apple said that OS X would not work on a generic Intel PC, only on Apple's gear. So now it's starting to come true? Wah!
As for the breakage between 10.4.1 Intel and 10.4.2 Intel - Get used to it - this may well happen a few more times before live product ships next year. I don't think any legit developers are worried about it. Only the pirates. Right now is the "build, test, and learn" phase, anyhow.
Re:'universal' binaries ayyy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Forced obsolescence (Score:2, Insightful)
Forced obsolescence of a DEVELOPER product that is under development? I mean, that'd much worse than, say, writing an operating system kernel and altering the ABI to break binary modules every so often I reckon*.
* probably the reason that the new x86 build of Mac OS X has the compatibility issues.
Re:Anti-Piracy or simple incompatibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy crush Apple? Piracy has SAVED Apple! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not really... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give it a couple of days... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think the two are intertwined. It's impossible for a computer to decide, after all, when you're pirating something. There's no distinction between ripping a CD you bought to put on your iPod and ripping one you borrowed to put up on p2p networks. The only way to prevent the second is to prevent the first.
And let's see... Can I play a DVD on Linux legally yet? Without the ability to pirate, that causes me to lose my freedom.
Or if there is a "Trusted Computing" Linux, will I be able to write software on it that rips CDs, or emulates a Sega Genesis? Will I even be able to run my own software at all?
New Mac probably not going to be PC compatible (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe never. The consumer hardware that ultimately ships may only partly resemble PC compatible hardware. Using Intel CPUs and PCI chipsets does not mean you have a PC compatible motherboard. The current hack only works because Apple is using an off-the-shelf Intel PC motherboard. Apple has quite a bit of experience designing their own motherboards, they could easily redo their current custom design, or redo an Intel reference design, and ship something that does not use PC compatible parts and Mac OS X can be coded to only support those parts. Think interrupt controllers, DMA controllers, etc. The real cost savings comes from using Intel CPUs and PCI chipsets, not from having Intel design your motherboard.
Remember, Apple only said they would do nothing to stop Windows from running on their hardware. That does not mean the version of Windows you have today will run, they may merely mean they would not prevent MS from doing a version of Windows for Apple hardware.
Re:'universal' binaries ayyy (Score:5, Insightful)
You're insane.
These are developer systems that cost $1000 each, you can't buy one without signing an NDA, and next year you'll have to give them back to Apple. If your shiny new universal binary doesn't run on a developer system that hasn't been upgraded to the latest OS from Apple... who the hell cares? The binary you compile when Apple is ready to sell x86-based Macs will run just fine on the x86-based Macs that your customers can actually buy. If some developer hasn't bothered to upgrade to Apple's latest version yet, who cares if your app won't work for him?
Does anyone else think that the whole universal binaries idea is a waste of time?
No, I'm pretty sure it's just you. Do you even know what a universal binary is?
Sure its handy where writing two versions is next to impossible, but realistically, thats not very often.
Yeah, I didn't think so. Go learn something about what's going on here before babbling incoherently about it.
Re:'universal' binaries ayyy (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm-- This is a developer system. It's not finished. This isn't The Thing That'll Be Released Next Year, it's something cobbled together so that folks like me can make sure my software will work on the processor/hardware. It's not a live system that's being 'bugfixed', it's a development system that's actively being developed. That means it'll change. Binary file formats, linker specifics, etc. etc. We're not so much 'upgrading', we're keeping our aim focusssed on a moving target.
...also, having re-read your comment: where do you get the idea that anyone wants to maintain any sort of compatibility with the original 10.4.1 DTK? I mean, it's not like it's been released to the public or anything. Compatibility with the intel build of OS X 10.4.1 is not required; compatibility with the intel build of OS X 10.2 will also have been broken, but you don't seem concerned about that...? Or do you think we should all maintain compatibility with the pirated copies of OS Xi 10.4.1?
(For the record, intel apps built under 10.4.1 still work using 10.4.2; I'd guess that new capabilities/functions were added to the intel dynamic linker, which gcc 4.0.1 uses)
Again, you seem to be labouring under a misapprehension here. Universal Binaries are what are technically known as 'fat' binaries. In other words, they are a file which contains more than one executable file concatenated together. In this case, it's a file which has the i386 binary and the ppc binary within it, padded to fit the encapsulated 'files' on filesystem block boundaries (4096 bytes) and with a header up front that says where they are.
I can't believe I'm having to say this on Slashdot of all places, but universal binaries are not some weird magical thing which runs the same binary code on two different processors. They're not like the bytecode generated for the Java Virtual Machine. They're just a way of storing the binary code & data for different architectures within a single file. That's all.
Oh, and want to see a shipping application compiled as a universal binary? Try BBEdit 8.2.3 [barebones.com] (here are the release notes [barebones.com]).
This is not news, it's inherent in OS X developmen (Score:2, Insightful)
It has been the case for quite a while that a Mac OS X application built against a particular set of headers and stub libs will only run against those libs or newer. This means that if you build against the 10.3.9 headers (either by building against the system headers under 10.3.9 or against the 10.3.9 SDK), your code will not run in 10.3.8.
It has also been the case that the XCode install provided by Apple only provides SDK for the newest dot-releases of the OS (e.g. the current XCode installer has SDKs for 10.2.8 and 10.3.9 and no other of the 10.2.x and 10.3.x releases).
See Apple's Cross-Development Programming Guide at http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Develope
This is no intentional crippling. It's just how XCode works. No conspiracy here, move along.
Re:Forced obsolescence (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but this isn't 'planned obsolescence'. This is an Unfinished Product. If I write a program, and at the start I put in Feature X, then later on remove Feature X to make way for Feature Y, before I've even released it as a product, then nothing becomes obsolete. There's no-one using Feature X, because the product hasn't been released. Now, I may have sent copies to some people to test, but that's all they'd be doing with it. Testing. Just like we are with the Apple DTKs, and the Intel builds of OS X.
Now, if OS X 10.4.1 for Intel were actually shipping, I'd agree. But it isn't. It's an unfinished product that is only available to paid-up developers -- the reason for which is very likely to filter out hobbyists and people who would sign up & 'buy' an Intel-based Mac for general use. The Developer Transition Kits are not ready for the prime time. They aren't finished. They are a work-in-progress.
OS X for Intel isn't finished. Its entire user base is made up of people who know that, and who have no trouble whatsoever updating to the latest version of the pre-release software. There are no legitimate users of OS X 10.4.1 for Intel processors who do not have access to the 10.4.2 install DVD, and there are none who have any reason not to install it.
-Q
Re:It's about responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's hardware business is already in jeopardy -- PC margins are extremely low and getting lower. The $100 PC is only a matter of a couple years away. Bill Gates is even predicting that PC hardware will be given away for free with software or services.
I think Apple's move to Intel really is not predicated on performance or watts (Macs sell just fine without them), but survival in a profit-free hardware market. When HP and a few other vendors crater, Jobs will come out of this with millions of OS X/.Mac/iTunes subscriptions and looking like a genius.
Re:omg (Score:4, Insightful)
I would presume that they are going to break binary compatibility with every release until they release the intel version of OS X to the public.
Apple only released OS X for intel in a bundle with a Mac OS X developer preview TPM equipped motherboard inside a G5 case. The computer doesn't even belong to the developers who have them, they have to hand them back to Apple when they're finished.
It's not unreasonable in these circumstances to expect the developers to keep the OS up to date, and breaking binary compatibility is just one way to encourage them.
Personally, I don't forsee it affecting anyone who has the OS legitimately, and to those who weren't using it legitimately... tough. Thems the breaks when you use a hacked, pirated version of pre-release software.
Re:It's about responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
When you hear analysts saying this (which is where you're obviously getting it from) they aren't talking about Personal Computer makers, they mean PC makers, as in the Windows and Linux variety. Why are margins so thin? Well, look at their prices! Except for the Mac mini, Apple isn't even trying to compete with them on the only metric they really use - price and performance "figures".
There's a reason Apple and Dell have continued to pull in healthy profits over the tech bust. Dell has volume to make up for it's cut-throat pricing, and Apple has the fact they actually price their products with decent profit margins and aren't having to battle directly with the cheap PC makers (the question of what operating system a machine runs means both have markets they don't have to worry about the other horning in on).
I think Apple's move to Intel really is not predicated on performance or watts (Macs sell just fine without them), but survival in a profit-free hardware market.
I think a lot of it is brand recognition. By moving to the chips "everybody else is using" it makes marketing the machine a lot easier speedwise. Consumers know the Intel brand and while they know IBM, they don't know IBM as a microprocessor maker, but as the PC company that (no longer exists and) made the Aptiva a little over a decade ago. Nobody will ask "Well how does this compare to that Pentium 4 3Ghz?" like they did with the PowerPC chips when they're looking at a Macintel.
When HP and a few other vendors crater...
HP wont crater because of poor profits from not being able to limbo as low as Dell. They're going down for the same reason lots of great companies go down. They stopped being a company and started being a corporation. Which meant bean counters were given too much power and a line of great products started having corners cut on them. The company profits off it's old reputation as a maker of quality printers and PC's for awhile and one day people start waking up and realizing the printer they bought is really just a... (how did that poster in the scanner recommendation story put it? oh yes) a flimsy ink cartridge holder.
Jobs will come out of this with millions of OS X/.Mac/iTunes subscriptions and looking like a genius.
1) Apple doesn't make much of anything off iTunes, and I don't see them adopting a subscription model given their current formula is working so well.
2) I don't see
3) There wont be much market for OSX subscriptions if piracy of it isn't curbed. Apple can't claim that it wants to make sure OSX86 runs on Macs only and never take steps to break piracy/hacking down. Apple's changing of the Intel developer build OSX in this latest version is simply their action speaking louder than their words, which is why it's garnering such attention.