You know if Apple would stop trying to control the world and release OSX as a standalone operating system for all PC users, they would seriously give Microsoft a run for their money. Apples already run Intel chipsets so its not like they would have to go far to do it. Just get driver support from the major manufacturers.
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Standalone OSX
- Thread starter MStele
- Start date
Apple is a hardware manufacturer first and foremost, OS X is, if nothing else, a way to sell more hardware.
Opening up OS X to be installed on any x86 system means more headaches for them. What possible reason would they have to do this anyway? Are they hurting for cash?
Opening up OS X to be installed on any x86 system means more headaches for them. What possible reason would they have to do this anyway? Are they hurting for cash?
vailr
Diamond Member
Apple doesn't manufacture anything in the U.S. anymore.
Every Apple product (and it's components) are made in China, except for the Intel CPU's inside the PC's.
Apple should, IMHO, support an open-source bootable CD, similar to Psystar's "EFI Rebel" software, that would allow installation of retail OS-X on any fairly recent model Intel or AMD CPU machine.
Every Apple product (and it's components) are made in China, except for the Intel CPU's inside the PC's.
Apple should, IMHO, support an open-source bootable CD, similar to Psystar's "EFI Rebel" software, that would allow installation of retail OS-X on any fairly recent model Intel or AMD CPU machine.
scootermaster
Platinum Member
Why?
And I don't mean why do you want Apple to do that, because that much is painfully obvious. But you said Apple should (in your "humble" opinion) do that. So I ask you: Why?
Why should Apple do that? Are they in the business of losing money or something?
Speaking of Apple and their money...
"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders,"
Michael Dell, 1997
I recently saw an interesting factoid... Apple currently has enough cash, that is you know, money in the bank that they could, at the drop of a hat take out to buy hot dogs or something, to BUY Dell. Outright, no need to leverage anything, outright, could buy Dell.
I think Apple is running their business just fine. They are making themselves and their shareholders money (lots of it) and are doing it quarter after quarter, year after year.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball just had a bit on his site that was saying that a lot of people fear change, and if you look at the computer industry, you have Apple and you have et al. And the reason you here these things over and over again (Apple should use Windows, Apple should release OS X for all, Apple should make a netbook, Apple should make a cheaper Mac Pro) is because that is what the rest of the industry is doing. The rest of the industry took a nosedive toward the floor on pricing, meanwhile Apple maintained its pricing. Apple's numbers grew by quite a bit, and the rest of the industry didn't really seem to move much.
mmntech
Lifer
My parents still have their Motorola Starmax Mac clone. The 200mhz 5500 model.
Apple will never release OS X for PC hardware, not officially anyway. OSx86 and Psystar only exist because Apple doesn't see them as a threat. The half-hearted lawsuits are really more warning than anything else. They'd lock down the OS like Fort Knox if one of these cloners ever took off.
scootermaster
Platinum Member
Yeah, this is the same question I'm asking.
Like when people say something like "if only apple would release [some product they want] they'd make SOOO much money". Like there aren't people at Apple being paid MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of dollars to find out if that's actually true or not, and if it was, like they're sitting there in a board meeting with Steve, lying about it.
The big price premium is in the Pro line.. the iMacs are actually fairly affordable, considering a 5-6yr life span.
And to be honest, they do release the full version, nothing is stopping you from picking up a retail copy and hacking it on your machine, you just don't get any support. And honestly if you can't handle no support for making hack, I would really look into getting a real Mac.
But Apple creating an EFI device.. well, that's one of them 'bag of hurt' situations.
And to be honest, they do release the full version, nothing is stopping you from picking up a retail copy and hacking it on your machine, you just don't get any support. And honestly if you can't handle no support for making hack, I would really look into getting a real Mac.
But Apple creating an EFI device.. well, that's one of them 'bag of hurt' situations.
Nothinman
Elite Member
And this is one reason why for-profit companies suck so bad, their primary focus is on making money for themselves and (if they're public) their shareholders. Sometimes it works out and translates into what consumers want, but even then it usually comes bundled with crap they don't want too.
That's because their margins are so high and their primary customers have money to burn. Companies like Dell have lower margins (all of our sales people complain about the lack of margin they get on a Dell sale) so drops in sales hurt more.
KeypoX
Diamond Member
Apple couldnt sell enough copies of mac osx to make money. If they could obviously they would, they could make much more money at way. You think their margins are high for 'their' hardware, software margins are much higher.
It would be awesome if they would try, but the greatest thing about an apple is that all the hardware is handpicked to work with the software.
It would be awesome if they would try, but the greatest thing about an apple is that all the hardware is handpicked to work with the software.
So everyone should do everything for free? Is that really what you're insinuating? As nice as that sounds in theory it's unattainable. Even Microsoft doesn't do everything exactly the way people want. And they're considered the holy grail of "I can do what I want with their software." Open source is great, but it comes at a price... user experience and ease of use.
Do I wish I could put OS X on any computer I want? Sure, but really to what end? So I can have a box in my living room to play videos on? That's nice, and I do love it, but in the end, I think the next upgrade to that will just be a Mac Mini.. It's easier, smaller, and only slightly more expensive.
Nothinman
Elite Member
No, but it's easy to tell when the motivation behind a product is pure sales vs a technically good product. When your main motivator is shareholders instead of customers you're much more likely to cut corners just to make the books look better.
I would say MS isn't the holy grail of anything, most certainly not flexibility or customizable software.
Have you tried Ubuntu lately? Besides game support I'd say it's right on par with Windows and OS X. Sure, some people will find things to complain about but the same is true of anything.
To the same end that being able to put Windows on any computer? It's not like OS X is some single-purpose OS.
Well, I would argue that Apple's products are good. Maybe not for everyone, but I have never run into a hardware issue that made me go.. man, I really wish I had this, or that. People niggle over things like Non-Removable batteries, etc... but really, how many times have you had to do this? I haven't ever. In the 3 years of owning my laptop, and the 1.5 years of owning my iPhone. And if I do, then I make an appointment, take it into Apple and have it replaced in like an hour or so.
Well, they tend to be the model that most people hold up when they ask why isn't Apple doing this, or that... holy grail is the wrong choice of words.
I downloaded Ubuntu when v9 came out, and the install was easy.. however, installing apps and generally getting around in the OS was kind of a pain. I was running it in a VM, and it didn't completely install the tools correctly to manage the OS, so that probably was Parallels fault, more than Ubuntu. 9.10 is coming out in a few days, and I'll probably give it a go again to see.
But most Open Source software solutions aren't as polished as their retail variants. For instance, Open Office... I'm super glad that exists because I can use it for free without having to worry about a license for Office. However, I find Office and iWork to be MUCH better UIs and much easier to use.
Well, that's true. But the only machine I see as being overpriced (and it's not really even that overpriced, they just choose to put SUPER high end components in it) is the Mac Pro. I think if Apple made a $1000 variant of the MacPro people wouldn't complain about OS X being open as much as they do now.
Nothinman
Elite Member
I never said I didn't consider them good, although my exposure is fairly limited.
I leave my phone on vibrate a lot, I even have my current one set to vibrate even when on audible since I don't hear it a lot when I'm in bars and suchs, and that tends to eat battery. I had a spare battery for my previous 2 phones and am contemplating getting one for my current one because of that.
Well, in that respect pretty much everyone is more flexible than Apple.
Going from XP->W7 was a huge pain but I managed. In fact, I find any version of Windows much more painful than Linux. It's all about personal preference and what you're used to.
Would it surprise you to find out that OpenOffice started as a commercial product named StarOffice? It was only open sourced after Sun bought it out and decided to release the code that they could. They still pay people to work on it (not sure how Oracle buying them will affect that) along with other companies like Novell, RedHat, IBM and Google. If anything OpenOffice has taken huge strides since it was opened up.
Well overpriced is subjective and apparently a lot of people are willing to drop $3K on a PC for no good reason. But, yea, considering that their line goes straight from the iMac to the Mac Pro and the pro starts at $2500 is pretty stupid. If one could get a reasonably priced tower without having to pay for Xeons I'm sure people would consider them a lot more reasonable.
silverpig
Lifer
Not really. Apple has $5.2b in cash right now, and an additional $18b in short-term securities. Dell's assets are listed as being $26.5b.
Apple's cash position changed a lot since last year though, as it was at $11.8b of cash and 10.2b of short-term securities in 2008.
So not quite.
What do you mean by limited? Limited like my Solaris exposure is limited in that i have used a Sparc once? Limited like my general Linux exposure is limited in that I have installed Ubuntu maybe half a dozen times and used it maybe for a grand total of a week? Or limited like my automatic transmission exposure is limited in that I drive a stick shift?
I am guessing that you get a lot of phone calls then? Just because by that statement, one might think that you are saying that just by having the phone on vibrate drains the battery.
Yea, you are probably right there, certainly when it comes to features on hardware... took them how long to put SD card readers on their systems?
You're pretty right there. I know that I find Windows XP absolutely infuriating to use, but Windows 7 compared to that is a breeze. Though I still prefer OS X over both, and would rather try to install and play Crysis on an abacus than use Linux (that really is overly harsh, mostly just wanted to use abacus in a sentence)
It actually wouldn't surprise me, as I actually already knew that. I am going to assume that you also knew that Apple, after acquiring KHTML and WebKit (or however it is supposed to be spelled, apparently it matters) they have since kept it open source, and contributed to it greatly. Now, answer me, the basis of a great number of mobile browsers (particularly some of the best ones) and the third and fourth most used desktop browsers is?
OpenOffice has come a long way, espeically when comparing 3.0 to 2.0. 2.0 was an absolute nightmare, and I couldn't stand even having it installed, let alone using it. 3.0 on the other hand, I tolerate.
Looking at Apple's pricing they have all the points covered, and although plenty of people have said that they wish that Apple would release a desktop with 1 CPU instead of 2, a Core 2 (or i7 now) instead of Xeon, 2 HDDs instead of 4, 1 ODD instead of 2, that sort of thing, a Mac Pro Lite, as it were, I reiterate that I think Apple is doing just fine with their current approach.
Plus the new 27" iMac is fairly impressive, the base model is like a huge gorgeous screen with a free computer on the back.
Nothinman
Elite Member
Limited in that I've used a couple of friends' iPhones/iPods on occasion, done some work on our CEO's Mac at work and when given a hand-me-down Mac Pro I installed Linux as quickly as I could.
No, I get a lot of emails, txts, facebook updates, etc. I do have single number reach setup on our Call Manager so when my desk phone rings my cell phone does too a couple seconds later, but I usually catch it before a full ring happens on my cell.
And software, they don't even let you change the theme of their window manager.
That was directed at Kmax82 who used Open Office as an example of bad open source software.
Yes, I did know about KHTML. And for playing nice, Apple gets a cookie. But they also took Mach and FreeBSD and left that open source while tacking on a ton of closed software. In this day and age it's impossible to avoid OSS software, even the most staunch closed source companies like Adobe and Microsoft have contributed in various ways.
And I say they'd do a little better if they had a middle of the road tower. What reason do they really have for using Xeons other than to jack up the price? I'd love to see Apple's margin on that thing, it's probably around 40%.
Which is nice for the people that want a compact desk computer. However, I want a tower that I don't have to take out a loan to afford. I wouldn't even mind the extra $50 or so that they tack on for the OS X license, not that I'd use it.
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