Apple Patent Hints at Net-Booting Cloud Strategy

An anonymous reader writes "Apple has received a patent that hints at the intent of providing network computers that will boot through a 'net-booted environment.' It may seem that Apple is moving slowly into the cloud computing age and that it has many assets that are simply not leveraged in what could be a massive cloud environment that could cause more than just a headache for Google and Microsoft. However, it appears that Apple has been working for some time on an operating system, conceivably a version of a next-generation Mac OS or iOS, that could boot computers and other devices via an Internet connection."

Re:really? Are they?

[ohmantics]

And that's exactly what this continuation of a 1999 patent covers: NetBoot of the original iMac. This is a non-story published by yet another blog that doesn't know how to read patents.

Re:really? Are they?

[Anonymous Coward]

and after decades of with this capability, what percentage of capable systems actually do this? ... very few.

I have quite a few systems that boot from SAN.

And PXE boot is very handy for installing or when you want to boot off of a virtualized floppy.

Re:Definitely possible

[Haedrian]

"who really owns (pwns) your hardware? "

Why are you asking that question on an article about Apple? Isn't it obvious?