Apple's time to break out?

[Nothinman]

If they released a good alternative to M$ Windows and gained 50% marketshare, well, that is A LOT LOT LOT more money than their current 2% hardware marketshare is making them.

Right, like 50% marketshare will just magically happen for them if they get rid of the DRM checks. No one has been able to come up with a decent alternative to Windows that 'normal' people like, I really doubt Apple could do it. And they'd need something like WINE to be able to run Windows apps because lord knows that MS won't port Office to OS X x86 if it's a direct competitor with Windows.

To give you an example, just through MS Office microsoft makes more money on every mac sold than apple! Software = teh pr0fit$

Software is also a killer because it's so easy to pirate, how many people do you think would actually pay for Apple's software? Probably a whole helluva lot less than the amount of people that pay for MS Office.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I'm not saying that they won't lock it to their hardware I'm saying if they didn't it could be quite interesting.

There was a reason why it didn't install. The file was rather large, 8gb or something. Once you double click it, goatse hits you right in the face. :laugh: This is what I read from many sources.

 

[Nothinman]

I heard about the goatse one a while back, but I thought a new, real, one was leaked recently.

 

[yukichigai]

There was a blog post a while ago from an ex-Apple employee who was talking about the Intel-compatible builds of OS X they made behind closed doors. (His NDA had expired) If there's any truth to it, I think it means that Apple may be considering trying to break into the OS market.

 

[Nothinman]

Apple is already sort of in the OS market, but they'll only sell you an OS if you've already bought their hardware. The fact that they're moving to Intel CPUs doesn't change that at all.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: ghost03

Originally posted by: Nothinman
They can't drop the hardware business because they would die very quicky if they did.

That is not true. If they kept the same amount of software marketshare and lost the hardware business they would die. If they released a good alternative to M$ Windows and gained 50% marketshare, well, that is A LOT LOT LOT more money than their current 2% hardware marketshare is making them.

To give you an example, just through MS Office microsoft makes more money on every mac sold than apple! Software = teh pr0fit$

Only in the rare case where you dominate the market to the point that you can do things like harm competitors by forcing users to use a new, incompatible file format. If Apple wants to attack Microsoft from underneath they are either going to have to come up with a vastly superior operating system that ms can't just copy or they'd have to drop prices significantly, killing their chances at profits. Not to mention that osx probably isn't ready to scale to the size of Windows, both in terms of hardware support (although the open source community can obviously help with that) and the huge volume of 3rd party software.

And of course, if you could install osx on whiteboxes, Apple's hardware business would die overnight (again, unless they cut prices drastically).

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: STaSh

Originally posted by: doornail

Originally posted by: STaSh
What do you think Apple is going to do when they add support for Blu-Ray, premium HD content, etc?

Oooh oooh. I know this one ... just a sec. Oh yeah, offer a product that will never enter my household!

Guess you won't have any computers in your house then. Either that, or you won't be able to use premium content. If Linux has any aspirations to support this, they will need to do the same thing.

'Premium content' is a load of marketing crap. To me 'premium' means 'the best' which translates roughly to 'that which works the best possible in all situations' including the ones where I don't pay hundreds of extra dollars for an artificial technical limitation.

OK, then call it something different. Just don't change the topic, which is high-budget content being for-pay.

These policies are made by the content providers who are trying to protect their IP. I think it stinks, bad. But the way things stand now, everyone is going to have to play by their rules.

Nobody has to play by their rules. They could charge $1000 for a disc that self destructs after the first viewing and nobody would play along then (my point is that we all have the choice to ignore this crap). Software makers could simply refuse to support the technology and it would die before it got started. If I had control of an operating system I would refuse to put the required code it, I wouldn't care if my users couldn't view the 'premium' content.

If one wants their content, one must (theoretically) play by their rules. Of course, since they have become the primary provider of entertainment, to the point that (arguably) popular culture becomes an economic good produced by an industry, the masses may no longer remember what it "feels like" to have control over their culture. Ultimately, yes, they have control over the direction their culture takes, through focus groups, sales, etc.; but the ownership of culture now lies in the hands of an exclusive few; to deny people the right to directly reuse bits of their own culture (which is what DRM will do) is absolutely just an invalid notion in my eyes.

Now that I finally have some time for personal reading, I'm going to try to explore this idea further.

And there's no doubt that someone with the proper hardware, software, etc will get it, rip it and put it up for download somewhere.

Exactly. This technology will cause hassle and ill-will for the people that actually do things legally. It will pose only minor problems for the real culprits. The media industry is simply going to have to recognize that charging repeatedly for a product that can be reproduced infinitely for almost no cost is becoming less and less of a realistic business model.

This fits into my previous assertions. The current paradigm of copyright is supported by very little in history to any degree; and at the length they currently demand (life of author + 50, 70, or (now) 90 years), the notion of ownership of an idea is flat-out criminal, especially in light of the retroactive term extensions they push through Congress and various treaties every 20 years.

You often hear of my type complaining about the negative effects of DRM, specifically about the consequences for fair use. Really, when we talk about fair use, we really mean that we want a remix culture, rather than a permission culture. We feel that requiring permission to reuse bits of works, especially for deriviative works that will be free, is not a valid concept, especially in light of the approaching-zero transaction cost of information on the Internet.

 

[drag]

Screw hollywood and the majority of the entertainment industry.

The vast majority of stuff they spew out is crap and it's not even worth wasting the time to download most of it via bittorrent illegally, much less requiring to buy a new motherboard/cpu, new optical media drive, new display, and submitting myself to the horror that is windows just so that I can have the privilage to pay them for utter premium crap.

Screw them. Let them eat their DRM.

The vast majority of people would reject the whole concept out of hand if they weren't ignorant about what the implications are. And nobody is going to bother explaining it to them because, guess what, the TV, newspapers, and radio, are owned by the same a-holes that churn out these corporate pop horrors like Britney spears, R-kelly the child molester and a the whole host of unimaginative and uninspired movies that have come out in the past year or so.

There is definately some stuff I like and I am willing to hand over money for, but I don't like it enough to let them tell me what I can and cannot do with my own property and my own hardware.

Not nearly enough. They can keep it. If they impliment DRM on their stuff I realy just don't want to have anything to do with it.

As for Apple suplanting Microsoft Windows as a popular OS remember that Apple is the only major company that has made a big splash in the market place specificly by selling DRM-laced media.

Do you think that they would want to throw the ipod cash cow away? They specificly use DRM in their itunes to _try_ to dictate to you what software you can use to listen to the music and with what hardware you can use to listen to your music.

If they figured that they could make money from deploying a method to sell movies and operating systems over the internet for a profit by using intel's or another company's hardware-based DRM sceme, they'd jump at the chance. Morals don't enter into it anywere for them.

I feel that they will probably impliment some DRM sceme into their system.

It would be much smarter if they didn't because people would pirate OS X and it would create a much higher demand for OS X-compatable software and games... but I don't think Apple is that smart.

If they were smart they'd allow people to pirate it and then when they had a much larger software library then they currently do and have more market penitration then they would lock down future versions of Mac OS with hardware DRM to then to grab as much profits as possible.

But historically Microsoft has been much smarter and much better at this sort of thing then Apple ever was.. which is one of the major reasons Microsoft owns 95% of the market and Apple owns 3%

 

[ghost03]

Originally posted by: drag
But historically Microsoft has been much smarter and much better at this sort of thing then Apple ever was.. which is one of the major reasons Microsoft owns 95% of the market and Apple owns 3%

I agree with you and want to add that it helps that Microsoft is only a software company--it's reasonable to say that OSX is a superiour os but they're using it to sell hardware--the closed system hurts too.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: ghost03

Originally posted by: drag
But historically Microsoft has been much smarter and much better at this sort of thing then Apple ever was.. which is one of the major reasons Microsoft owns 95% of the market and Apple owns 3%

I agree with you and want to add that it helps that Microsoft is only a software company--it's reasonable to say that OSX is a superiour os but they're using it to sell hardware--the closed system hurts too.

Well for a very long time Apple hardware was very superior, too.

Stereo sound, graphic cards with megs of memory, ability to do high resolutions in 'true color' and such was all aviable when DOS people thought EGA graphics were keen gear.

Then for a long time PowerMacs were actually significantly more powerfull then PCs that were aviable. But now they are pretty much the same. Same video cards, same harddrives, same memory.. Just different motherboards and cpus. Now in a couple years those aren't even any different.

It's going to be interesting to see how Apple is able to compete as just another PC manufacturer...

 

[R3MF]

i don't give a stuff about premium content. however, i do expect to watch HD-DVD's at 1920x1080. if Hollywood+Microsoft/Apple attempts to frustrate that i will use hacks and cracks to get around the impediment. if this cannot be done i won't buy HD-DVD content.

but what i really want to see is the BBC/Dirac revolution. if when Dirac gets finished the BBC releases their library of film/video it could smash the hollywood/HD-DVD market. bring it on.

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: ghost03
Many people have always wanted Apple to release their OS to all x86 platforms,

Either your OS supports DRM or it doesn't (and you can buy all the hw you want and still not get to play). As I understand it, all components involved (disc reader, player software, OS, graphics card and monitor) MUST support DRM.

So how is this related to Apple vs Microsoft?

I'm thinking of buying the 30" Apple Cinema and this DRM thing doesn't exactly make my decision any easier. If the monitor lacks DRM, then I'll have to depend on pirates to enable me to play DRM protected content. No blu-ray edition of LotR for me.

An Apple a day doesn't keep DRM away. (if anything, they'll probably become DRM compliant before MS)

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: ghost03
it's reasonable to say that OSX is a superiour os

Superiour in what way?

 

[cronic]

I'm happy with my current setup and x64. If nothing changes with vista and drm I say screw it. It appears to be a little flashier, but I mod my desktop with windowblinds. Do I think apple will do what it takes to earn marketshare? NO. and yes, i have owned several macs over the years.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Why do people still believe they can install OSX on current x86 systems? Apple has said clearly they WILL NOT make OSX available for retail. Either you buy a Mac, or you don't.

That being said, the DRM infestation is coming. Both Apple and Microsoft have their own interests at heart, as well as movie/music studios. Even if current US Fair Use laws were upheld, the powers that be would simply pay to change the laws officially in their favor.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: BikeDude

Originally posted by: ghost03
it's reasonable to say that OSX is a superiour os

Superiour in what way?

Probably in relation to Windows...

OS X is more stable, more secure, and has a much slicker OpenGL-based user interface. Plus it's Unix and inherently compatable with the vast majority of high-quality Free software (not talking about shareware BS..) that is aviable on the internet. It's command line is much better then Windows. It can run perl without cludges like cygwin. It has a optional X server aviable as a option during install time. Handling wireless devices is easier. so on and so forth.

The main advantage of Windows, pretty much the only one for the vast majority of people in this forum, is that it has a lot more video games aviable for it.

Personally I don't use either, I like Debian. However I do own a copy of OS X that I have installed on my laptop.. I use to have a couple legal copies of Windows 2000 pro/server/advanced server and Windows XP pro somewere I got from school, but I think I accidently threw away the install cd. (they expired since I finished school anyways).

But that's just a opinion. Plenty of people think Windows is better.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: BikeDude

Originally posted by: ghost03
it's reasonable to say that OSX is a superiour os

Superiour in what way?

Probably in relation to Windows...

OS X is more stable, more secure, and has a much slicker OpenGL-based user interface. Plus it's Unix and inherently compatable with the vast majority of high-quality Free software (not talking about shareware BS..) that is aviable on the internet. It's command line is much better then Windows. It can run perl without cludges like cygwin. It has a optional X server aviable as a option during install time. Handling wireless devices is easier. so on and so forth.

The main advantage of Windows, pretty much the only one for the vast majority of people in this forum, is that it has a lot more video games aviable for it.

Personally I don't use either, I like Debian. However I do own a copy of OS X that I have installed on my laptop.. I use to have a couple legal copies of Windows 2000 pro/server/advanced server and Windows XP pro somewere I got from school, but I think I accidently threw away the install cd. (they expired since I finished school anyways).

But that's just a opinion. Plenty of people think Windows is better.

Here we go yet again....

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: drag
OS X is more stable

You could perhaps pinpoint exactly which parts of the NT kernel design makes NT less stable than OS X?

An OS' stability these days hinges on good third-party device drivers combined with quality hardware. I would be very surprised if OS X behaved differently when faced with faulty hw and poorly written device drivers.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: BikeDude

Originally posted by: drag
OS X is more stable

You could perhaps pinpoint exactly which parts of the NT kernel design makes NT less stable than OS X?

An OS' stability these days hinges on good third-party device drivers combined with quality hardware. I would be very surprised if OS X behaved differently when faced with faulty hw and poorly written device drivers.

I'm not going to make any statements about the relative stability of the two, but I think osx has a chance to be very different from windows in this respect. Apple should discourage proprietary 3rd party drivers as much as possible. Right now there isn't quite the need for the huge amount of hardware support that windows has, darwin can get by easily with stuff from the bsd/linux communities, plus any custom hardware that apple adds (which will obviously have good support).

If apple does ever gain a significant portion of the market, they will have a huge community of developers writing good drivers for free. Instead of being forced to use bad drivers for bad hardware (the real problem) a decent driver can be written to simply shield the rest of the os from the problem. Since osx is so much smaller than windows, it can't count on hardware companies putting enough effort into fixing problems, but the *nix community certainly will.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

DRM? Remember DRM? Topic, anyone?

 

[remagavon]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I would love to switch to Linux, if only the games I liked worked in it, BattleField2 and my MMORPGs, etc.

I don't know about BF2, but I know some people who play WoW in wine/cedega and get the same or better performance as they did in Windows. It can be a bit of a pain to make them work, but in a lot of cases you can do it.

I'm not saying that they won't lock it to their hardware I'm saying if they didn't it could be quite interesting.

They are, it's already been talked about many times and recently the OS X developer kit was leaked and anyone who downloaded it can tell you that it won't install on just any old PC.

Guess you won't have any computers in your house then. Either that, or you won't be able to use premium content. If Linux has any aspirations to support this, they will need to do the same thing.

There's already TPM drivers in the kernel, but I don't think any userland software uses them yet. But I'll probably just not watch any of that "premium" content, since most of the stuff coming out of Holywood these days is crap. And there's no doubt that someone with the proper hardware, software, etc will get it, rip it and put it up for download somewhere.

I've never seen anyone getting better performance using wine for any application. Do you have a link?

 

[Nothinman]

I've never seen anyone getting better performance using wine for any application. Do you have a link?

No link sorry, I just saw it mentioned on IRC.

WoW is supported by Transgaming now though, so I can't imagine it would be too bad even if it is slower.

http://digital-conquest.ath.cx/wiki/index.php/World_of_Warcraft
http://transgaming.org/gamesdb/games/view.mhtml?game_id=3518

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: BikeDude

Originally posted by: drag
OS X is more stable

You could perhaps pinpoint exactly which parts of the NT kernel design makes NT less stable than OS X?

An OS' stability these days hinges on good third-party device drivers combined with quality hardware. I would be very surprised if OS X behaved differently when faced with faulty hw and poorly written device drivers.

Well device drivers have plagued Windows in the past there are other aspects.

It's just personal ancedotal experiance, so take it for what it's worth.

I worked for a few months as a assistant for a electronic imaging lab that used a lot (a LOT) of Macs for the students to work on. They had a few Windows machines that people used for 3d apps (because generally the Dells are much faster then the PowerMacs, workstation-class dual 2.4ghz Xeon hardware and at the time they were new) and they had a couple w2k servers that they used for file servers.

Generally the OS X machines were much lower maintance then the Windows machines.

Even with students having full administrative access to both machines and moving files and stuff like that around on the OS X machines...

The file systems on the OS X machines were kinda weak though. Thats were most of the problems came from. And classic mode sucked realy bad in terms of maintanance, we needed that for the Quark Express stuff, becuase Quark sucked.

The SP2 on Windows XP helps a lot though. With better security and limiting spyware stability is helped a lot. It's kinda difficult sometimes to use it because it's not completely backward compatable with all applications and device drivers, which is very important in Windows-lan since there is no standard automated method to keep things up to date except for the core MS stuff. Thing is that Windows XP starts off pretty decent, but after a few months of usage, updates, things tend to go downhill a bit.

Still like Debian more though.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
DRM? Remember DRM? Topic, anyone?

The problem with discussing Microsoft vs Apple on the subject of DRM is that Apple probably likes DRM as much or more then Microsoft..

After all DRM (abiet in software form) is one of major features behind Itune's success. I don't think that many in the recording industry would allow Apple to sell their music if they decided to use mp3's or Ogg's instead of their protected AAC format.