Mac OS X x86 Put To The Test 672
stivi writes "ZDNet has tested Mac OS X x86 on a Toshiba laptop. The article discusses installation process, performance and power consumption comparison and has a thorough photo gallery as well." From the article: "Mac OS X will not be available on any old x86 PC, though, as Apple wants to retain control over its hardware platform. From the company's point of view, this is an understandable position, as the margins on Apple-branded computers are much higher than is usual for standard x86 PCs. Were Apple to put the x86 version of its operating system on general release, Dell would begin to manufacture Apple clones. This would put enormous pressure on the price of Apple's own computers -- something the company is naturally keen to avoid."
Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mac OS X will not be available on any old x86 PC, though, as Apple wants to retain control over its hardware platform. Right, Apple wants the fastest, smoothest and most gorgeous OS. It won't run on any old X86. You don't see V12 engines in Hyundais either. You don't see marble floors in Section 8 housing. You don't see big, soft seats in coach class.
From the company's point of view, this is an understandable position, as the margins on Apple-b
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, never mind
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell if there was a linux distro like that it would be worth it.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lastly, the experience (a great one, IMO) of owning a Mac, is knowing that the people I bought this computer from makes and supports everything from the computer to the OS that runs it, seemlessly. It's one of Apple's mantras. Complete and total solutions from beginning to end. iTunes to iPod, Machine to Mac OS, etc... it's why Apple users are so damned happy. You lose that, and the company will, finally, become "beleaguered" because the joy of owning a Mac will fall to the way-side. OS X (damn nice OS) on Bob's X1200 (made in his garage using crappy parts) would completely destroy what Steve/Apple have been doing for years.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
The engines won't fit in a Hyundai, but they fit in Toyotas and are often found (with trivial modifications) in Toyotas at much lower price points. Another example are Hondas and Accuras. My neighbor owns a 2000 3.2TL Sedan and I have an Accord V6 sedan of the same year. The car is almost identical, with a few more bells and whistles on the Accura. The big difference is the nameplate, not the car.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Informative)
When Toyota wanted to sell cars to Americans, they sold Toyotas. I think that's pretty obvious now since they are the #2 or #3 selling brand in the states? Toyota wanted to sell luxury vehicles and had attempted to buy Porsche (or BMW) in the early to mid 80s but the Germans didn't want the Japanese to own a German brand so they put the money together to prevent that. Toyota then opted to build a luxury brand where quality would trickle down into their regular Toyota line instead of trying to hybri
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, you know, i think some people do just that, as bizarre as it may seem. I know a guy who just this past weekend absolutely stuffed his gut with shrimp at a wedding reception - an
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's why Apple isn't selling OS X for white (or gray or black) boxes. What I can't figure out is why the crowd that hangs out here screaming about how government shouldn't do anything for anyone expects Apple to go against their best interests to gift them with a cheap white box computer while giving themselves beaucoup support headac
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all products on newegg.com are cheap and poorly made.
I put together a very nice system (for gaming) for under $800, all with quality parts from newegg.com. It's been running for four months, with not one problem.
Ok, one problem: Fedora Core 4 won't recognize my wireless PCI card.
Anyway
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lexus does not "prevent" Hyundai drivers from putting Lexus engines in their cars.
Your only valid point is the need to have a nice profit margin for R&D.
'My MS helpdesk team fixes 90% of problems that can be assessed as "sub par hardware" and "user is a moron and bought crap."'
-- Why is a user a moron? I can guarantee you that the parts this user purchased claimed they were 100% compatible with Microsoft products. What is the user supposed to do about this?
Cheep? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
I get the feeling that you're saying that you don't want to OSX on cheap computers because then, anyone could be working using it.
Your OSX system is a status symbol like Lexus.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although, I believe what the poster was saying that he doesn't want OS X running on cheap computers for anyone to use it, because that would degrade the quality of the operating system and the user experience. Hello, Windows.
Mac and OS X will always be intertwined. That's how Apple does things.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:5, Interesting)
Then you probably are exactly the sort of user who should switch to OS X.
It has become increasingly the case that Dell and Gateway computers have been using cheaper and cheaper components to undercut each other's price points, and quality has suffered. Many recent news stories and articles on this topic have been published lately. Have you not been reading?
Windows is a system designed to be installed on any commodity PC and with proper drivers operate flawlessly. I personally have had great luck with Windows on many PCs because I am careful in selecting my hardware when I put together systems. Unfortunately I have seen it is more often the case that people buy preassembled systems that were designed to meet low price points and the systems are absolute trash. Windows is unstable and the users are typically unsatisfied.
In these cases Microsoft almost always gets the blame. *nix users love to make jokes about Windows instability and what have you, because as a general rule the stories they tell of blue screens and lost data are backed by hard numbers. And yet there is still a huge percentage of users that have rock solid systems running on Windows without any problems (without Viruses and Worms, even, though that's an entirely different issue).
At some point you have to realize that when it comes to computers, sometimes you really do get what you pay for. That cheap CD-Burner is going to make coasters. That cheap sound card is going to hang and leave applications wihtout sound, or not allow different applications to share the sound device, this USB interface is going to interfere with that Parallel Port so you can either use your web-cam OR your printer, but not both (and sometimes your Sound Card or your Printer, but not both).
This all sounds like bullshit from MS-DOS days, but it's quite true today. I have on many occassions found that while repairing someone's practically brand new system that there really wasn't much wrong with it except that they were attempting to do two things with their system at once that it just doesn't like to do.
THESE are exactly the sorts of problems that Apple wants to keep tight control over.
"Why should they care?" people will ask.
They care because OS X is more stable than Windows. It functions more reliably, it does so with less complication and less knowledge required by the user. Apple does NOT want to add in the nightmare of universal hardware support and complicate things by trying to figure out what crap component some users added that made this or that program stop working unexpectedly.
If Apple can control the number of failure points in the OS, they can keep that reputation of being a more solid and easier to use/configure OS than Microsoft.
If they decide to open the floodgates of cheap hardware and 3rd party commodity system resellers, then they will simply turn into yet another *nix distributor, and take on all of the headaches that come with a huge sea of unsupported hardware. After all, Joe Sixpack would be pretty pissed if he buys a USB webcam that won't work on the OS X system he bought from Dell/Gateway/Whoever. That would then reflect negatively on Apple.
You might say you'd rather have OS X on generic x86 haredware, but Apple doesn't want the negative factors. They make OS X and you don't. They win.
For now, there won't be any official support for OS X on generic PCs. That isn't stopping you from buying a copy of OS X and tricking in into installing, but when something doesn't work right, don't expect Apple to care. You are, after all, an unsupported user.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you've ever done any amount of repair work, you would know that contrary to your (obviously) limited exposure the low end systems from practically any manufacturer are exactly worth what people pay for them. Shit.
Apple stands to win out in many ways and lose out in some. They stand to win out by people purchasing the OS to install on unauthorised PC
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference being that even with technically (I mean, by specification, not including whatever funky copy-protection nonsense is on there) identical hardware, Apple wishes to restrict their base.
This is probably just to
Identical HW temporary, it's not just DRM chip (Score:5, Insightful)
First, the technically identical hardware is temporary, its convenient, it may be a good feint, etc. Switching to an Intel PCI chipset and Intel CPU *does not* mean you will have PC/AT compatible hardware. Apple has the expertise to design their own motherboards and chipsets. They could do anything from take their current proprietary design and replace the PowerPC with a Pentium to take a stock Intel PCI chipset as a reference and incorporate some of their custom chipset work, or simply leave out legacy PC junk that they have no historical dependency on but the currently shipping Windows does. Apple *did not* say that the current version of Windows would run on their hardware, they said they would not prevent Windows from running on their hardware. This suggests Windows will need to be ported to Apple's x86 hardware. Look back in history, once upon a time MS-DOS machines were not IBM PC compatible, the IBM PC was merely one of various MS-DOS machines. These machines had Intel CPUs and other similar hardware and benefitted from commodity parts as a result. However these systems were fundamentally incompatible, you had to adhere to the MS-DOS API to be safe. I'm leaning towards a repeat of history over a standard off-the-shelf PC design plus a DRM chip.
Secondly, Apple does not wish to restrict their user base, they wish to ensure that they survive in a meaningful sense. Apple fundamentally is a hardware company, they are famous for their software but that software is largely a tool to get people to buy their more expensive hardware(1). Their software is not really their core business, it is their core marketting to some degree. To run Mac OS X on generic PC hardware would kill their hardware business. They tried growing the Mac market by introducing alternative hardware vendors and it nearly killed them. The market did not grow, Apple's sales were cannibalized as existing Mac users flocked to the Mac clones. You can look to Linux as another example. Sun once had a thriving desktop business selling generic (with respect to the functionality that the user needed) unix boxes. Once a generic unix (Linux - again, only addressing people who needed generic unix apps/tools) could be run on inexpensive hardware Sun's desktop market evaporated. Apple would suffer a similar evaporation of their hardware market, suffer a devestating loss in revenue, and be a ghost of their former self. So a PC user may benefit from Mac OS X on generic PC hardware but what is in it for Apple. It has to be a mutually beneficial deal for it to happen, it is not, it won't happen.
(1) I have to note the mini as an exception. Unlike other systems it is pretty damn price competitive, or maybe its just that Apple's proportionately higher markup is being applied to such an inexpensive machine that the difference between the mini and a comparable PC is insignificant. Or maybe the mini's margin is much less than other Macs and the mini is being used as a "loss leader" to draw users into the Apple family. If enough people buy a bigger Mac as their second Mac whenever it comes time to upgrade Apple may have made a very good long term versus short term tradeoff.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:2)
Dude, if Dell does not manufacture cheap apple clones, I WILL
It just works... (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I think Apple should continue producing quality hardware and software for those that want the best, and not cater for the cheapskates who want to run the OS on crappy cheap hardware.
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:5, Interesting)
Out of interest why do you compare an Apple branded x86 PC as a having a v12 when all other PCs are deemed as "Hyundais"? The straight fact is that any modern "Hyundai" could quite easily run any x86 operating system from Windows, Solaris, Linux, BSD and OS X with absolutely no performance issue whatsoever. If Apple wants to cripple their OS so it only operates on a subset of hardware that is their own business, but it doesn't mean it's somehow superior or intrinsically more demanding to run than any other OS out there.
I can understand why they don't want any common garden variety PC to run their OS - opening it up to any OEM PC system would seriously impinge on their hardware sales. Still, if that was their big concern, perhaps they should have stuck to the PowerPC platform where it would be the non-issue it is now. It's quite obvious that within six months of OS X x86 coming out that there is going to be some kind of emulator for it, possible running as close to full speed that it would be viable to use it from a generic PC.
Re:An Apple Monopoly is just as evil. (Score:5, Insightful)
The one great thing about the x86 platform was that we could put what operating system we wanted on it.
You can't run Solaris on it. Until recently (and still, legally speaking) you coulnd't put OS X on it. Apple isn't changing anything there. They aren't doing a darn thing to your existing x86 box, and the x86 boxes that they sell will happily run any operating system that you want. Their restrictions are software restrictions, and have no effect on the hardware that runs the new OS.
Apple is bringing to the x86 world that it is okay to lock consumers into your own brand of hardware. This is not the direction we need to go.
Bah. Your criticism is nothing new, and it isn't specific to the x86 world. Apple has always restricted its OS to its own hardware, except for the brief period where they allowed clones. The move to x86 is not some insidous plot to force their business strategy on everyone else, and it won't change the way Linux or even Microsoft products operate.
After what Apple did to the original Mac clone makers it makes one wonder how anyone can excuse them.
As an Apple shareholder, I most certainly can excuse them. The decision to open up their business to other vendors was theirs to make, and so was the decision to close it again. As a responsible business, they could not continue to hemorrage money just because it makes them look nice and "open" (even though only officially licensed clone makers could produce computers that ran MacOS).
Perhaps its just "correct" to continue to excuse their obviously monopolistic activities...
When you make a claim like "obviously monopolistic", you are assuming that nobody could observe their actions and disagree that they are a monopoly. However, many people do disagree, and the burden of proof is on you to provide examples of monopolistic behavior and back that up with informed references to U.S. and global anti-trust laws. I believe that you cannot, and should therefore stop wasting your time writing rants like this. Come to think of it, I should stop wasting my time responding to rants like this.
Re:An Apple Monopoly is just as evil. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is demonstrably false. When Apple allowed cloning in the mid-late 90s lifelong mac users abandoned ship by the tens of thousands to buy PowerComputing and other clones. I have good friend who is a professional photographer. He has never owned any computer that did not run Mac OS, and this is going back twenty years. When the clones came out, he simply bought based on pri
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple charged the clone vendors too little for the OS.
If Apple licensed MacOS X to any X86 vendor at $1,000 per copy, the cloners wouldn't be able to undercut the price of the Mini or the eMac. And undercutting the smaller iMacs would be tough.
There is a price at which cloning makes sense to Apple. Right now, it looks like Apple is not willing to spend the time and effort to find that price.
Re:Its not really fair testing Beta Software... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, iTunes is the one application in the developer build that comes as a PowerPC application. That means, it hasn't been compiled for a Pentium, but for a PowerPC, and has to be translated to Pentium code by Rosetta. Every other application would have been absolutely on par with its Windows counterpart. I first thought they might have used iTunes deliberately, but it is of course the only one where a Windows version exists, so they had to use this.
Second, iTunes music encoding (which is what was measured) is about the most highly optimised code that you can find. It takes advantage of Altivec on PowerPC, it uses SSE2 and SSE3 on Pentium, and on an elderly G3 it falls back to plain floating-point code, using all the 32 floating-point registers that the G3 has.
Guess what. Rosetta doesn't handle Altivec code. For two reasons: It is an absolute pain to translate to Pentium code, and if an application needs handcoded Altivec optimisations on a PowerPC, then you surely want handcoded optimisation using SSE on the Pentium. Because Altivec is not handled, the G3 version is translated, which is much less optimised. So we are now comparing the translation of plain floating-point code with hand-optimised SSE code. But that floating-point code uses all 32 floating point registers - and Pentium has only eight! So the translated code spends lots of time storing and loading registers, which the Pentium code doesn't. An AAC or MP3 encoder written for Pentium just wouldn't do that; it would try to use fewer variables.
3. iTunes encoding is incredibly processing intensive, while other applications are memory intensive. Memory has the same speed, whether you run original Pentium code or translated PowerPC code. Memory intensive applications tend to use the same time, whether Pentium code or Rosetta-translated code is used. If you copy 100MB of memory, the speed will be exactly the same, whether you use Pentium code or translated PPC code. With compute-intensive code, Rosetta falls behind.
4. iTunes encoding doesn't use any operating system functions. Most apps use the OS a lot, for drawing, user interface, disk access and so on. All OS routines run at full speed, with no translation penalty. Rosetta apps with lots of operating system calls will tend to be quite close to native speed, those without any OS calls will be relatively slower.
So here we have the absolutely worst case for any application: A compute-intensive application, heavily relying on Altivec code, where the much inferior G3 version gets translated to Pentium 4 code. Compared to hand-optimised SSE2 code. Exactly the kind of application where developers would create a native version as quick as possible.
(Note that with a shipping product, iTunes encoding on Windows and on MacOS X 86 will use exactly the same source code and run at exactly the same speed, because Apple will use exactly the same hand-optimised SSE code for both versions.)
Re:Apple being hinted to as evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you find a really nice laptop, with XP Pro, that comes close to the 'feel' you get using a G4, you are going to have paid around the same asking price as the mac.
Don't get me wrong, there are some great laptops out there, but even my Dell Precision M60 ($5000) has a real cheap feel about it, and the port placement is irritating as hell.
Unleash the hounds! (Score:2, Interesting)
Are we serious here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't we just wait until Apple ships a mac with intel inside? I love Apple and everything, but this barrage of useless Apple articles has got to stop.
Re:Are we serious here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, thanks for being the 159th person to point that out. Now, did you find out anything new, surprising and/or useful by playing around with your unsupported hack of OSx86 on your Toshiba laptop?
This good for Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
This might be useful if Apple embraces the FOSS community, and lets them fill in the gaps in device drivers, etc. Keeping things closed isn't good for anyone except the company that is doing the closing, and there are many many anecdotes of where that kind of practice isn't even good for them.
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple loses their hardware business to clones and their software business to CheapBytes, how exactly are they going to keep making OS X? Their going out of business may be good for everyone but them (although I'd disagree with that) but that seems like an odd calculation to expect them to make.
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:2)
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:2)
They don't want your $200. They want thousands of your dollars over a very long period of time. They would rather you buy a new $2000 workstation from them in a few years than just buy a $200 operating system today.
The only way to really acheive that (even if the product is great) is by maintaining control over the platform. Microsoft did it through shady business pracitices and extraordina
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
[1] Unit profit, ignoring R&D costs.
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
They would like you to buy a $2000 tower every 3-5 years, and then buy OS upgrades every year and a half or so at $130 a pop.
And so far, they've been providing enough value with thier OS to get a lot of Mac users to agree to exactly that.
Apple appears to have very little interest in appealing to people who run Linux (or pirated Windows) on $300 AMD systems. If you don't have enough use for a Mac to at least justify the cost of a Mac mini plus yearly upgrades, then OS X is not for y
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:2)
Re:This good for Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
http://developer.apple.com/devicedrivers/ [apple.com]
Someone from the Open Source crowd wants to write a driver for a piece of hardware? knock yourselves out. Everything you need from Apple is available freely. Of course, you also need data from the hardware manufacturer, who may not be so open.
Time zones (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Time zones (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Time zones (Score:2)
Re:Time zones (Score:2)
know some german isp operating in the uk, so uk-users will get a "german" ip
and aol have a block of ips that can be allocated to any of their users, ie could be in the states, could be in the uk
Re:Time zones (Score:3, Funny)
$ timezone
Finding timezone for 127.0.0.1...
Toe in the water (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Toe in the water (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Toe in the water (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Toe in the water (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? BSD is stable on plenty of 3rd party hardware. Why wouldn't a Mac be as stable?
Re:Toe in the water (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that Apple isn't a software company, still less one that makes money selling OSes. That's something I think they view as a mug's game, pitting themselves against Microsoft above and Linux below.
Apple isn't even a hardware company these days. They are a digital lifestyles company, selling computing and digital entertainment kit at high markups compared to the Dells of the world.
Apple has always been about control-- control of the hardware, softw
So sell it from the Apple store (Score:2, Funny)
Not going to be an overwhelming success (Score:2, Interesting)
Keeping the prices high on what is essentially commodity hardware does nothing to alleviate the cost problem.
Re:Not going to be an overwhelming success (Score:2)
then by all means, it will be 'commodity hardware'.
Hmmmm..... (Score:5, Insightful)
That will last as long as it takes Apple to DRM the hell out of it. Or worse, dispatch it's army of lawyers armed with cease and desist orders to anyone who dares to suggest a method to install on a non Apple box.
Re:Hmmmm..... (Score:2)
I'd rather they send the lawyers than put DRM in. DRM affects everyone (EULA violators & legitimate users). Lawyers only affect EULA violators.
Only a matter of time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is playing with fire. Those developer releases will certainly get out in the world. I'm also certain someone will find a way to get around the Apple-only requirement once the x86 Macs start shipping, cutting into Apple's hardware revenue.
Re:Only a matter of time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Almost no one is going to run OS X on generic boxes. You'll need considerable technical know how to do it, ruling out the majority of people. And those who do know how, won't want to, because you'll only have access to security updates running a licensed copy of OS X.
Some oft forgotten points (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, Apple won't be paying the Windows tax on it's x86 machines, and everybody else (except Linux vendors) will. This gives Apple a price advantage, they could actually
Hardware Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. This means that, like the hardware in my Powerbook, OS X should play well with the hardware of their x86 PC. Better than trying to support all odds and ends of hardware for all x86's. Things are much more stable in the Powerbook, than the Linux desktop with the Nvidia graphics card (on which X.org crashes and freezes up the screen after 5 minutes of use).
Hey, I'm a huge fan of Linux, but sometimes, you just want things to work the way they were meant to and not spend 3 hours setting something up. This is how OS X spoiled me I suppose....
keen to avoid? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course I now expect several comments telling me why this analogy is wrong. They will range from "Microsoft is a convicted monopolist!!!" to "Apple needs to control the hardware to create the best user experience". Bottom line is, Apple wan
Re:keen to avoid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Will Windows run on Mac hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will Windows run on Mac hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, I like the idea of "Apple Approved" hardware. I don't know who the responsibility of testing of such capabilities, and have the concern it would become the equivalent of audio THX certification(basically a paid-for label, that requires components to meet certain, minimum specs). That said, when I buy parts for the PCs I support, I usually order parts Apple uses in their machines(e.g. Pioneer DVD burners).
Maybe not exactly... (Score:2, Insightful)
Were Apple to put the x86 version of its operating system on general release, Dell would begin to manufacture Apple clones. This would put enormous pressure on the price of Apple's own computers -- something the company is naturally keen to avoid.
While this is undoubtedly true, perhaps the bigger risk to Apple is that without maintaining their traditionally tight control over the hardware/software integration, the Mac OS X user experience would be likely to suffer, and thus so would Apple's reputation
Re:Maybe not exactly... (Score:2)
The
Re:Maybe not exactly... (Score:3)
While this is undoubtedly true, perhaps the bigger risk to Apple is that without maintaining their traditionally tight control over the hardware/software integration, the Mac OS X user experience would be likely to suffer, and thus so would Apple's reputation for quality.
I do not agree that the user experience will suffer. First of all, if OS X APIs are sane, then it would be easy to write new drivers for it. Secondly, Apple could run an 'Apple approved' campaign so as that people know which x86 hardwar
I love the installation time (Score:2)
Compared to a normal installation which takes less than 40 minutes and what, about 3 gigs of space?
Considering this article, I would also be very interested in what they think of the DNF physics engine performance.
Hey ZDNet... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was looking up tutorials online for this, I always found "It is completely illegal to install Mac os X on any old x86 machine, take no responcibility for your actions"
Then obviously they installed it on their computers (and probably downloaded the dvd img from bittorrent), and they act like they never did it. I understand they are trying to protect themselves by giving you a warning, but they have photographic proof that they did something that they shouldn't have. Seems silly to me.
Not ONLY a bottomline decision (Score:2, Interesting)
A large percentage of the trouble I've had with PCs while running Microsoft's OSes stem from Microsoft having only vague ideas of what my hardware might be.
Even moreso, probably 80% or more of the troubles I've had with PCs while running Linux stem from the developers having
Uh...great summary? (Score:2)
Middle ground? (Score:5, Interesting)
The usual assumption is that Apple can't sell OS X x86 for generic x86 because they're a hardware company, and nobody will buy their hardware if they can buy x86.
I can think of several possible solutions. Right now Apple is making OS X x86 locked to their hardware. What if Apple was to license this locking technology to hardware vendors, allowing them to sell at a premium, a machine that could run X or Windows. This would allow them to collect part of the price.
The licensing agreement could also require that the licensing chip was only available to hi-tier machines priced at similar price points as Apple machines, as well as requiring certain hardware elements (ie, built-in BT, Firewire 800, USB2, display adapters, etc).
This would allow people interested in OS X but unwilling to buy an Apple machine to get into OS X, but still retain revenue from hardware sales and maintain the quality level associated with Apple hardware. Even if there were no restrictions on price points, the hardware licensing should make up for lost margin on Apple hardware.
Re:Middle ground? (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago if you had called Dell, Emagic, or Microsoft about a problem with Logic Platinum 6 for your Dell, then they would all blame the problem on each other. "Oh well the error must be the OS", "No the problem is your hardware", "Oh it's your drivers", etc... Same with Protools systems that are non-qualified. Call Dell, Microsoft and Digidesign about something on a non-tested machine.
This might not sound like a huge deal to most of you. If a program crashes, you reload, etc. I know that quite a few of you work in programming, etc... but rarely do you have a client who is 'in a mood' sitting near you, who is waiting to be recorded. If your stuff is buggy, you lose client and money. Professional artists need professional tools. I personally like the fact that I haven't crashed Logic Pro yet, and that if i did have a problem that I could get world class support from apple and they won't point fingers at my drivers, video card, etc...
That is the world class hardware in the G5 case. It's stuff that WORKS, and is supported.
Slashdotting ZDnet?!? (Score:2)
Re:Slashdotting ZDnet?!? (Score:3, Informative)
(All work and no play makes the filter a dull boy)Google cache: Page 1 [72.14.203.104]
(All work and no play makes the filter a dull boy)Google cache: Page 2 [72.14.203.104]
(All work and no play makes the filter a dull boy)Google cache: Page 3 [72.14.203.104]
(All work and no play makes the filter a dull boy)Google cache: Page 4 [72.14.203.104]
(All work and no play makes the filter a dull boy)Google cache: Page 5 [72.14.203.104]
Evidence Apple may be sucking up to Dell... (Score:2, Informative)
Better question: What still uses FAT16 specifically?
The Dell Restore partition you get when CTRL-F11-ing at startup.
Food for thought?
do the math, Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
That's 50,000 Apple computers that Apple has to manufacture and ship. Let's say Apple profits $500 on each unit, that's $25 million.
Microsoft, meanwhile is making about $200 per each of the other 95%. That's 950,000 x $200 = $190 million just for software licenses -- no hardware manufacturing, no shipping.
If Apple licenses OS X to Dell, HP, and Sony to ship with clones, they have a realistic shot at 20% of the computer market in the short
Re:do the math, Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. Steve Jobs _has_ beaten Bill Gates. Bill Gates doesn't know it yet, but Steve Jobs and most of the world knows.
And in a smallish engagement on the side, he has beaten Michael Eisner.
Price margin not the only issue (Score:2)
This is one case where I would gladly pay more for a box, because the hardware has been certified by Apple. I'm sure Apple is concerned that their O/S work correctly, rather than hope that it will run on any old shitbox.
--Rob
Tablet? (Score:3, Interesting)
OS X and hardware locking? Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people get all worked up about OS X being hardware locked? If it were my OS, I'd do the same thing -- not just to secure my profits (though they are entitled, it is THEIR operating system), but to actually standardize on a reference platform that can be supported.
How much of any OS developer's time is wasted trying to account for instabilities in your cheap ass, five dollar, no name, Korean sweat shop motherboard? I don't care if Intel just botched a huge batch of boards, it happens, but trying to accomodate a hundred different chipsets and video cards and ram types and people messing with voltage...
We complain about how this industry has been around for so long, and how computers still aren't that stable? It's because there are N! possible combinations of hardware and software to try and get working together nicely, which is a lofty goal at best.
Call me crazy, but I'm at an age where I just want it to work, and my Powerbook at home always does, and my Powerbook at work always does. Part of that is the quality of the OS, and that's reflected in the (relative, not concrete) stability of the reference platform it's built on.
Unix is the broken driver model (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry, but you are just wrong. The parent is correct, and obviously you've never tried to develop a device driver and in fact are an end-user at best. I have done drivers, and let me tell you - unix is a pain in the ass to develop for. T
Screenshots (Score:5, Funny)
Why the big deal? (Score:3, Interesting)
Having switched to Mac OS X from Windows, I have achieved that goal: a machine that "just works." Reboot my iBook? Why? Reboot my HP? Every other day, and make sure I take out the Linksys WiFi card, because half the time it won't boot with it installed.
OK, enough of that, back to the topic at hand.
For years the MacOS has run only on Apple hardware. Now Apple has decided to switch to an x86-based architecture and has a version of OS X that will run on said architecture in advanced development. Marvelous, now they can use x86 processors in Apple hardware instead of PowerPC processors.
Now there's a big hullabaloo about wanting to run OS X on non-Apple hardware. There are pros and cons, many of which have already been brought up for discussion here. "Sell it for standard PC hardware and you'll capture market share!" "Lock it to Apple hardware to prevent loss of hardware sales and keep the stability of running on known hardware!" All valid points.
My question to the masses is: if it is limited to Apple hardware, who cares? How is that different from present, where OS X is only available to the general public with Apple hardware?
It's Apple's OS. Whether it runs on an Apple or grapefruit, that's their own business. Frankly, as a user, I'd prefer that OS X stay on Apple hardware. It works. It's stable. Apple doesn't sell a computer or an OS, they sell a package solution--a package solution that works.
Now, that brings up the question of Microsoft and Microsoft-produced hardware. If Microsoft were to come out and say "Starting with Longhorn, Windows will only run on Microsoft-built hardware." The lawsuits would come down hard and heavy.
How is this different from Apple? With the brief Mac clone market, Apple Mac hardware has always been required to run Apple Mac software (don't know if this is true for the Apple II/III line so I can't go back that far.) Marrying OS X to Apple hardware isn't a new business practice, it's been that way since the beginning. Microsoft starting the same thing now would be abuse of it's near-monopoly position.
So to keep myself from getting long-winded I'll end with the question again. Apple OS tied exclusively to Apple hardware. It's been that way since the beginning, what's the big deal now?
It's not about Intel (Score:3, Insightful)
I note a whole lot of comments about how Apple "ought to do clones so that I could homebuild my own Mac," and Apple sux or Apple rox or whatever.
The real interest in this article is that Apple is moving forward to increase its market share. They're a hardware company and they also write software that makes their hardware really sparkle, though I have read a number of articles that suggest that their OS software created so much overhead that it's not a great server for a back-office application
But from the user's perspective -- a GUI tool to partition a hard drive, imagine that! Easy installation that starts out with a simple GUI, gosh, that's neat! -- Apple's operating system generates a user experience that sets it above many others. Apple has "done design" on its hardware and they have also "done design" on their software.
A great follow-on article to this would be a research project to teach 10 students to use Windows, 10 to use Apple's OS X, 10 to use a popular and easy-to-use distro of Linux, 10 to use BSD, etc. Then submit a survey to them after they're up and running on their computers and try to elicit how each user feels about the experience of using the operating system and the applications they would use to do regular work, like write term papers, do finances, research things on the Internet and so on.
From my own experience of having used Windows and Apple's System 7, 8 and 9 as well as OS X, I'd say my personal experience on a Mac is an easier one. I think I am more relaxed on it. I think less about computer problems than I used to and now think only in terms of getting the sork accomplished.
Apple won't allow clones because when they had clones, it almost took down the company. They need the high income stream to continue to innovate. Sorry about all of you homebrew computer enthusiasts out there who want to build your own Mac but this cannot be helped.
And there are cheaper Macs out there; the Mac Mini [apple.com] is being sold for as little as $499, "nicely outfitted" at $998, plus the cost of a monitor. But remember, you're not buying "homebrew." You're not buying an Acer heapy-cheapy clone from some box assembler that does not innovate. Apple should be compared to HP in terms of price because HP actually does put innovation in their computers. IBM used to but they sold out to Lenovo and now they'll fast besmirch the name. So price comparisons need to take reality into consideration -- one should not rank Apple's price with a lower-tier manufacturer.
Also, the Apple computer I purchased in 1999 is still going strong and very useful. I know of no pee cees that can last that long. This probably cuts into the perceived market share for Apple computers because, if you buy a good one, it'll last longer than the equivelant pee cee. Look at the user-installed base to see Apple's true market share. I even know of people who are still using Apple's old System software and have not transitioned to OS X. One, in particular, does audio mixing with Digidesign's Pro Tools [avid.com] and not Avid's because the old software that ran under the old OS meets all current and future needs -- until his Mac finally bites the dust.
Intel makes processors and motherboards. Apple went with Intel, presumably because they had something more to offer than IBM.
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:4, Interesting)
While it is true that Apple sells the hardware for more than the sum of the parts; Apple hardware costs more because it goes through more quality control and has better design. Neither of those comes cheap, and they are appreciated by people who appreciate such things.
Regards to markup being your major opposition to buying Apple: what's wrong with the mini? Dirt cheap as far as computing goes and a very capable system to boot. It is actually your lust to possess the latest and greatest that prevents you from buying a cheap and good Mac? Perhaps you feel that you are something of a "top dog" with computing equipment and you don't want to loose that edge by going to the cheaper Macs and can't afford the uber-Tower G5's (which are really for professional work)?
While there are many reasons to skip Apple, price is no longer one of them!
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:2)
You mean Linus, right? Created an OS kernel that wasn't as functional as other Unices, but released the source code. Then people could install it on the hardware of their choice, rather than only on the platform for which binaries had been published, which was the style at th
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought a Mac Mini, just to give the Apple thing a try. And I have to say that the software is what impresses me. What comes for free on this machine is superior to many products under Windows I'd have to pay money for.
As long as people think software has no value, they are going to be unwilling to pay extra for what Apple is offering. I will not be one of those.
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:2)
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:2, Insightful)
The positive changes in their market cap and bottom line are the rightful reward for their mission.
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:2)
Torvalds?
Don't hurt me
Re:Too bad Apple isn't taking a different route (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure it's because you've combed their financials and you've figured out what per unit profit is after removing cost/profit associated with R&D, retail, distribution, software sales....
Or did you simply decide this because you did the most obvious thing, you compared them to Dell? You figured a G5 is pretty much the same thing as a P4 even though Apple has to buy a relatively low volume processor from a different company, and they have to design and contractract the fab of their own system controller and motherboards, and they have smaller economies of scale, and they make a nicer box (there's about 10lb of Aluminum in just the G5 tower shell)...
That's how you know that Apple charges way too much, right?
Of course every kid knows this.. that's why the average ACT score is like 13.
Re:Developer edition for VMs (Xen/VMWare) ? (Score:5, Insightful)
You create static network mounts by editing the fstab? Er...
BTW, mac os x can be configured to use the same files as any other unix, by default it's just set up to check netinfo first. You can modify the lookupd configuration to change this. Yeah, apple does things differently. But hey, different unix systems do to. I mean, I'm used to editing my
Now look at the syntax in `ld' for linking "framework" libraries, and hell, the fact that "framework" libraries exist. If you haven't worked on build systems, you won't understand the horror of that one.
This is a product of apple's development environment. They provide and promote their own dev environment that is not unix based. Well, sort of but not really unix based. Frameworks to me are a better solution than libraries, because they are far more flexible. Your framework can include multiple libraries for different platforms (say, um, x86 and PPC), it can include translations for multiple languages, it can include graphics and help files, etc all in one neat little package. How do you do this with unix systems? You end up with files spread all over the place, requiring installers and multiple archives for different platforms. I can easily delete everything associated with a framework. Deleting everything installed by a library is not so simple.
And of course mac os x supports plain old shared libraries as well.
If you haven't given up yet, try starting a GUI app from the console. Tip: You have to use the special "open" command, just executing it isn't enough.
Not true, you can start an app from the console just like you would on a unix system. Hint: the actual binary is not the yourapp.app folder, it resides inside there.
It goes on, and on. None of these things are all that bad (well, except for the retard who chose to ignore all compatibility and use "-framework name" instead of "-framework,name" in the linker options) but they're all very frustrating for someone developing for UNIX.
They're much less frustrating than getting your unix app running on windows
They're also good reasons to inform any Mac user who claims that "Mac OS X is just UNIX on the inside" just how wrong they are
Depends on what you consider unix... I mean, os x is unix on the inside. However, like many unix vendors and linux distros, they have their own way of doing certain things. At the core though, you have a unix kernel. That doesn't mean that your linux app will just compile and work (although many do just fine if you have the right libraries installed and use X11 for display). Now if you want your unix app to use apple's GUI components and other tools, well then, you're going to have to do more work, as you're leaving the compliant unix layer and using apple's own additions.
All these sorts of issues make it crucial to test on Mac OS X
I'd agree with that, but really it shouldn't be that hard to test. A mac mini costs less than $500. There are also a large number of mac os x hosting companies, not sure but I would think that someone out there probably offers some sort of full account where you could do VNC or something. Maybe... It'd be a good idea at least
I think that a lite version of OSX would not be worth apple's time though, I mean the resources to maintain a sepearate crippled release probably wouldn't benefit apple any. And if they just offered a developer version that is fully featured but runs on cheap x86 boxes, well, I think that would be abused pretty quickly.
Re:Developer edition for VMs (Xen/VMWare) ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I eventually discovered how to do this with NetInfo. It wasn't too easy to find good documentation, and there were some unpleasant complexities. For example, you can't use vfstype=afp and name=afp:///blah (even though you CAN use vfstype=nfs and name=host:/path for NFS mounts), you have to use vfstype=url and opts=url==afp://blah . This is despite the fact that:
mount -t afp afp://host/path
works, but
mount -t url -o url==afp://host/path
fails, claiming there is no mou
Re:Developer edition for VMs (Xen/VMWare) ? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, about your questions:
(1) If anything, they're moving further away from being UNIX-like with every release. Aqua, NetInfo, Launchd, etc etc etc. It's
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)