“At this point, Longhorn seems to be a largely cosmetic upgrade–something that helps you organize your data a bit better, thanks to graphical views, shortcuts, and desktop search aided by behind-the-scenes indexing. And since most of its key features have been or will be made available for Windows XP, Microsoft finds itself in the unenviable position of trying to convince the public that Longhorn, far from being a crucial update or a hotly anticipated new version, even matters at all. Hint: if you have to say it, it’s already too late,” Molly Wood writes for CNET.com.
“Windows is weak. So where’s the alternative? There may never be another moment in time like this: the giant is flagging, and a few well-aimed slingshot missiles could bring it down for good. Now is the time to beat Microsoft,” Wood writes. “I think Apple is the most perfectly poised to strike a killer blow. But it will have to untie the Mac from OS X. Some people want attractive, killer-design, expensive hardware, and that’s why they buy Sony and Apple. Other people–and a heck of a lot more of them–want function-over-form, inexpensive hardware that they can buy, sell, hack, and tweak like any other commodity. They buy Dell, Gateway, and Windows. If those people start buying Tiger, Apple suddenly owns the joint.”
Wood writes, “This scenario is not even remotely out of the realm of possibility. Tiger is based on Unix, for Pete’s sake. There’s no reason it can’t run on Intel-based PCs. Apple’s already using Intel processors in its Xserve RAID storage system. Steve Jobs said in 2003 that it was technically feasible to port OS X–then in Panther stages–to any processor, but as recently as February, Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company has no plans to switch platforms. It should. People would use OS X if they didn’t have to buy a new computer to get it (heck, by some accounts, Tiger and Longhorn are darn near the same thing). Apple should do the switching for them.”
Full article, highly recommended, here.
MacDailyNews Take: In order to minimize issues, Apple could go halfway and license “Mac OS X for x86” to Apple certified vendors like Sony or HP. These systems could be designed to run Mac OS X and recommended peripherals could be certified “Made for Max OS X x86.” This would help ensure the seamless, “It Just Works” Mac experience for consumers of such boxes. And remember, Apple offers email, browser, music, photo, calendar, etc. apps all bundled. The user would have much of what they need and could ditch old Windows apps. Thanks to iPod’s success, Apple is now positioned to take any revenue hit they might experience from a loss of Mac hardware revenue. What do you think?
Of note: Window tech writer Paul Thurrott, while attending WinHEC 2005 yesterday, wrote in his blog, “This one’s bizarre, but we heard at lunch today that Apple is unhappy with the PowerPC production at IBM and will be switching to Intel-compatible chips this very year.” Full article here. Take it for what it’s worth.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Why doesn’t Apple advertise Mac OS X on TV? – April 12, 2005
iPod success opens door to Mac OS X on Intel – March 04, 2004
Thurrott: ‘Longhorn is in complete disarray and in danger of collapsing under its own weight’ – April 27, 2005
Thurrott: Longhorn ‘has the makings of a train wreck’ – April 26, 2005
Thurrott: Longhorn demos ‘unimpressive, fall short of graphical excellence found today in Mac OS X’ – April 26, 2005
Microsoft employees leaving due to (and blogging about) malaise smothering company – April 25, 2005
eWEEK Editor Coursey: Longhorn so far ‘looks shockingly like a Macintosh’ – April 25, 2005
Due in late 2006, many of Windows Longhorn’s features have been in Mac OS X since 2001 – April 25, 2005
Apple’s Tiger debuts Friday while Microsoft’s Longhorn is burdened with one delay after another – April 25, 2005
Nearly every segment of the PC food chain needs Longhorn to succeed – April 22, 2005
Microsoft’s new mantra: ‘It Just Works’ ripped straight from Apple’s ‘Switch’ campaign – April 22, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Microsoft’s Longhorn: ‘They are shamelessly copying us’ – April 21, 2005
Apple shows off Mac OS Tiger in Microsoft’s backyard while Microsoft previews Windows XP ad push – April 19, 2005
Apple’s Mac OS X reality vs. Microsoft’s Longhorn fantasy – April 19, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn will bear more than just a passing resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – April 15, 2005
Analyst: ‘Microsoft’s Longhorn is going to have hard time upstaging Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger’ – April 13, 2005
Analyst: Apple in ‘position to exploit Microsoft missteps, claim leadership’ with Mac OS X Tiger – April 13, 2005
Apple’s Schiller: Mac OS X Tiger ‘has created even more distance between us and Microsoft’ – April 13, 2005
Will Mac OS X Tiger add fuel to Apple’s recent momentum in the computer business? – April 13, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple advertise Mac OS X on TV? – April 12, 2005
Analyst: Tiger proves ‘Apple is light years ahead of Microsoft in developing PC operating systems’ – April 12, 2005
Apple to ship Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ on Friday, April 29; pre-orders start today – April 12, 2005
Apple Announces Mac OS X Server ‘Tiger’ to ship Friday, April 29 with 64-bit application support – April 12, 2005
Analysts: Apple’s new Tiger operating system could really impact Mac sales – April 12, 2005
Piper Jaffray raises Apple estimates on Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ release news – April 12, 2005
Apple’s Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ vs. Microsoft’s Windows ‘Longhorn’ – March 31, 2005
New Microsoft Longhorn chief was former Pepto-Bismol brand manager – March 18, 2005
Microsoft’s Longhorn fantasy vs. Apple’s Mac OS X reality – September 14, 2004
Is Microsoft’s stripped-down ‘Longhorn’ worth waiting for? – September 10, 2004
Silicon Valley: Apple CEO Steve Jobs previews ‘Longhorn’ – June 29, 2004
PC Magazine: Microsoft ‘Longhorn’ preview shows ‘an Apple look’ – May 06, 2004
Microsoft concerned that Longhorn’s look and feel will be copied if revealed too soon – August 25, 2003
Windows ‘Longhorn’ to add translucent windows that ripple and shrink by 2005 – May 19, 2003
Mac OS X is a direct offspring of NeXTStep/OpenSTEP which ran on x86 hardware back in the day and did not sell very well outside select markets. Since then the OS has changed greatly and would be difficult to port to x86 hardware.
Why is Apple going to push x86? With the momentum of PPC (X Box and PS3 both using PPC derivatives), why switch? The developers would be irrate if Apple switched platforms again. Apple is pushing their limits with changing from 680×0 to PPC and then a few years later the massive switch to OS X. Windows does have the advantage that they have not had a massive change in many years (although it is causing problems for them now).
Why not have Sony, HP or a couple of the top players start selling Mac clones. Apple tried this before and it failed. If Apple were to do this, it would make sense to try it with Sony since they have a good relationship and put restrictions on what they can do with it. Make sure they have at least a 3 year agreement where Apple won’t take the license away. Is Apple going to do this? I doubt it, but there is more of chance that they’ll do the clones again instead of the switching to x86.
If Apple were to license OS X to IBM, it would have to run on POWER processors. I don’t think Apple wants to allow anyone to build “servers” that could be sold to regular consumers. We’d have a Revenge of the Clones on our hands, ar a new Power Computing as someone stated above.
Looks like we’ve got a TTCOT “Troll that complains of Trolls” in our midst.
Yeah guys, x86 is a very viable platform. Sure, G5 has the bandwidth thing and the vector performance, but x86 has plentiful and cheap peripheral hardware. Don’t discount x86 as being a crappy platform, it’s doing great! It just won’t work for Apple to sell to that market.
If Apple sold to x86, how many people would buy a Mac? I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t. I’d buy a machine that could dual-boot or native VM Windows and be done with the platform wars.
OS X would be the most copied OS ever. Apple’s business model would be thrown upside down. the G5 would be instantly gone and so would the G4, as good as they are. Platform innovation would drop a notch. Even the competition between MS and Apple would be less.
Why would it be less? Because people could choose freely between OS X and Windows. MS wouldn’t have to worry about porting their thousand products over to a completely alient platform.
I think it’s best that Apple stay with G4/5 and maybe POWER and stay out of x86. MS should make their products and/or formats more open. Then people could run whatever App or OS they want and we’d all be compatible and that’s what really matters.
oops… here is the full article… not much about the photo though… still interesting
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/607/607265p1.html
Hey “I’ll out drink Tiger anyday of the week”-
Have you deleoped any apps in Cocoa?
Have you actually deployed OSX Server?
Listen, not to totally disagree, but you have to get past the FUD. OSX IS a serious enterprise option. Both Oracle & Sisco have switched to this platform. Many of the world’s fastest servers are running OSX.
“Apple may have a (so called) “better” technology. But how can ANY of you judge that? “
We can judge that by using both platforms everyday. We all have choices.
Oh my, this x86 idea comes out about every four months.
Hey guys, it’s tiresome to sift through the same lame arguments.
Remember this: Apple is a hardware company. Cloning or moving to x86 would kill the Mac hardware sales. And no more Apple.
sorry…. Cisco, not Sisco…. my bad
One of the reasons why the Mac and OSx are so reliable is that Apple controls the hardware. Much of the grief with Windows is that the operating system has to cope with literally millions of possible hardware combinations and conflicts.
It would be a big mistake for Apple to allow OSx on uncontrolled hardware.
We have talked about this before. It would be nice, but Glick is right. Even to license a small number of manufacturers, and even if apple could control the part of the market they would market to, it would undercut mac hardware sales big time.
BTW, although everyone has an awful antecdote about trying to install 3rd party components on wintels, that process is much easier now that 98 and millenium are becoming rare. More often than not, wintels “just work”.
At least until a virus and spyware show up.
I think that putting OS X on an x86 platform would ruin the Apple brand, something very important to Apple. While OS X is inherently more secure than Windows, the fact that OS X runs on RISC architecture makes it damn near impossible for [OS X] to become infected with viruses and stuff. The security patches that we have, and warnings we hear would really be threats if OS X ran on x86.
On x86, OS X wouldn’t have the security bragging rights that it has now.
Let’s get this straight. For every $349 computer Dell sells there are at least 100 people who get upgraded to a $600 to $800 computer. To that you have to add anti virus, anti spyware and workable upgrades to all the free programs that come with the computer.
Apple does compete with their Mini. They should offer the Mini for $350 then ask how much ram and what size hard drive do you want with that? They also have to offer the $15 mouse, the $15 keyboard and the $150, 15″ LCD monitor on line and at their stores. Then they really have to tell the masses all about it.
With a little Dell marketing know how they could easily grab the 15% share they want and need. They don’t have to sell their soul to X86
Response to cNet
1-The great advantage that Windows has had since becoming dominant on the desktop is the great cost attached to replacing both existing hardware and 3rd-party application software. The listed hardware requirements for Longhorn + WinFS will require a complete upgrade cycle as few, if any, PCs sold today have the hardware specs to handle it. Do you have a 4-6 gHz dual core CPU with 2 Gb of RAM? Didn’t think so.
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1083874709.html
This eliminates the old Windows advantage of upgrading on existing hardware. Like your old PC? I hope you like Windows XP– you are going to be using it for a VERY long time.
2- x86 is just about played out in it’s current form and the future is going to be PPC or other RISC-type processors. It’s not apparent today, but it will be over the next 18-36 months. The days of Apple, Motorola and IBM going it alone are over and the train has left the station. Who wants to be the last person jumping on board the Titanic? Even Linus Torvalds is running his Linux on PPC hardware Mac G5.
http://www.power.org/
http://www.penguinppc.org/
3-In addition to the rapidly growing base of Mac OS X native software you can add the X11 world and other projects. What was all that about Macs not having software?
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/updByCat.php
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/
http://fink.sourceforge.net/index.php?phpLang=en
http://darwine.opendarwin.org//
http://www.macgimp.org/
http://www.neooffice.org/
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/products/ydl4.0.1.shtml
http://www.apple.com/science/software/
Lowdown, what are you smoking. Longhorn will run on any pc today, it is intuitive enough to know that if the system cant handle curtain tasks, it will kick (mostly visual features) down a notch or two.
Have you deleoped any apps in Cocoa? -Yup I have DELEOPED with cocoa.
Have you actually deployed OSX Server? -Yup, quite a few actually, easy to deploy, crappy management tools.
Cocoa isnt all that bad. Compaired to .Net though? Not even close.
OS X 10.3 Server is, shall we say, way too short on features.
I use em both every day..OS X everyday since 2001, but really, the new car feeling has gone away, Now i’m on tiger, couple of cool new features, but not really enough to make me “switch” full time. Plus, some things are just easier (for me) on windows.
Highdown: except that Loghorn hasn’t anything in it yet – its all promised for later isn’t. Let’s see if it’ll run on any pc then shall we?
No one is suggesting that Apple just release OSX free into the x86 world and let happen what will.
If they moved to x86 they would still control the entire user experience. Just like with any chip they’ve used. They would have the motherboards and chipset designed to the their spec as they do now. They would just use a more plentiful and less expensive chip. Hopefully the AMD64. Which has single and dual core as well as shipping 64bit mobile processors.
Surely you people don’t think that Steve, as rich as he may be, has a motherboard or processor fab in his back yard and personally makes every Mac do you?
Apple could have 40% of the computer market if they made OS X for x86 and all Mac software vendors did the same. It would be a mess and not work well.
Or they or they could stick with Macs and gain only 20%.
I’d rather they pick what’s behind door #2. Don’t sacrifice quality just for dollars!
All three game machine companies have selected PPC based processors for their next-gen systems. Super-computers based on the PPC are springing up every couple of months. Multicore PPC is the wave of the future (can you say Cell?).
MDN magic Word is “around”, as in “Around this time next year Microsoft will announce yet another delay for Longhorn.”
So…
Why would it be a mess by moving to the x86 platform? It wouldn’t be any different than moving from 68000x to PPC. Or G4 to G5.
As I said, Apple would control the “whole” widget (pun intended)as they do now. I’m not saying let who ever wants to build and sell a box have OS X. That would be a Windows like nightmare. Apple would be the only supplier of Macs. Just like they are today. Only they would use plentiful and less expensive chips that are driven to scale by a demanding market. Obviously neither Moto nor IBM can keep up with the speeds or the quantities that Apple and we want. Have you ever seen back orders and huge waits to get a Dull PC? That kind of thing is unheard of on the darkside.
It would work well because it would remain a closed system (i.e. no clones) controled by Apple as it is today.
MW-economic. How appropriate.
jerry T..
ah.. yes.. but the definition of a Mac.. for most people would change drastically.. it wouldn’t be A MAC.. it would be OS X.. so the image of a Mac would (for 90% of people) change forever..
like SJ said.. brand equity
the best thing would be to have some kind of teaser.. like having a Demo version that people can play with for a month…. if apple bought cherry OS and then somehow, gave it to people through Best Buy, WalMart, etc, then people could see what they were missing..
really, Macs aren’t that expensive… but Apple has never really addressed the supply issue of, “What if we get over the 5% hump? 10%?” Licensing the OS is the only way to, quite easily, handle that…
I think Schiller said a few months ago, that they’d talked to HP et al, but were happy with the current hardware lock model.. for now..
Apple is already on the right processor. It won’t be long before Windows will be joining them. That’s when OS X will likely become much more portable whether Apple likes it or not.
Going to Intel now? Timing couldn’t be more favourable, but is it a good idea? That’s the billion dollar quesion. Apple would have to support both platforms (since PPC is the future), which is probably untenable.
AS much as I’d like to run OS X on cheaper more configuable intel hardware, I now suspect that it would be a bad move for Apple.
Mike-
Why would the definition of a Mac change anymore than it did when they went from 68000x to PPC? An Apple Mac is an Apple Mac.
“ONLY” Apple would spec, build and ship these. NO CLONES. They would control the whole thing top to bottom as they do now. They simply would be using a different more scaleable and plentiful processor.
You know that what makes the Mac great is that it is closed and tightly controlled by Apple. Not what processor they use. You can run Linux and other Oses on the G5. The experience isn’t anywhere near what Apple has developed.
It doesn’t matter what’s in the case, they could use a squirrel and wheel, it’s what’s on the hard drive and how well that’s written and controlled that counts.
Chrisnorth-
It wouldn’t be anymore configurable than the Mac platform is now. Apple would control all the hardware and drivers that go into their systems.
These days, I’m beginning to think the G5 (a scaled down version of one of IBM’s server chips) is really just to tide Apple over until Cell comes out. Cell is the real innovative chip, with capacity for higher GHz numbers. Since it will be used in video games, televisions, cell phones, etc., it should be manufactured in plentiful supply, putting an end to Apple’s problems. Cell is currently sitting in an IBM lab happily running Linux, and other undisclosed operating systems. I bet you one of those is OS X Tiger!
Way back in 1994, Steve Jobs was going on about his dream of an object-oriented nirvana for developers. With its “Software Cells” that can scale between devices, allowing a computer and a cell phone to run the same Software Cells, The Cell chip would seem to be a fulfillment of that dream. Tiger’s various Cores (CoreData, CoreImage, CoreVideo, etc.) seem to be the support for Software Cells on the Mac.
Cell would give great power to Apple’s Pro line, but it would be small enough, and cool enough, to run in laptops, the iMac, and perhaps even the Mac Mini. The only problem is the name. G6 is already taken as an automobile name. Being a Godzilla fan, I purpose: “GCell”. Godzilla won’t mind, he loves the Mac (Apple, talk to Toho in Japan. Trust me, they love Macs there, considering they make Godzilla movies with Macs, and would probably love to do an ad with you featuring Godzilla and/or Mothra.).
The future belongs to Apple and Cell. Sorry, Microsoft, big meanies like you are not invited to the party.
You want to use OSX then buy a Mac. You want to buy something cheap then buy the Mac Mini. But to put OSX on an x86 machine would kill Apple’s hardware business sales for good. This is a bad idea and that’s why Apple has not done so yet. Hopefully they never will is my opinion.
Microsoft never made Windows for Mac so why should Apple make OSX for Windows. It just doesn’t make sense to do so.