“Would Apple ever switch to Windows? Jobs concluded his [recent WWDC] keynote address by noting that the operating system is the soul of the Mac. This was hardly a revelation to those who have followed Apple’s history – particularly during the brief period when a less compelling Mac OS was enticing enough to power a clone market that quickly eroded Apple’s hardware sales. While, from Microsoft’s perspective, the Mac OS has always been Windows’ friendly rival (or historical R&D lab), Microsoft too is now pumping billions of dollars into R&D in an attempt to withstand competition from Linux, just as Intel has stepped up its investment to compete against a resurgent AMD,” Ross Rubin writes for Engadget.
“Today, such a switch seems unlikely because Microsoft still has a long way to go to make Windows a clearly superior alternative to Mac OS. Indeed, the spyware and viruses that plague Windows drive many to seriously consider the Mac platform. However, Longhorn is focused on greatly alleviating the security flaws in Windows. Ultimately, Apple doesn’t want to win the virus war simply because the Mac’s low market share makes it a less “desirable” target. A lot can happen in 20 years, particularly if the PC market saturates to the point that operating system R&D becomes harder to justify and Apple continues to see more of its growth coming from cross-platform devices such as iPods,” Rubin writes.
“A Macintosh without Mac OS would probably be about as successful in the PC marketplace as Sony has been. Consider, however, how far Microsoft has come since the missteps of Windows 3.1 and infancy of Windows 95,” Rubin writes. “Much more so than in chips and especially around Infinite Loop, software may be more art than science, but, as Bill Gates has shown with Corbis, a big enough bankroll can buy a lot of art.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This must be Wacky Wednesday. The day Apple drops their own operating system in favor of one from Microsoft (of all places) is the day Apple, not just the Mac, dies.
“The news business abhors a vacuum and will therefore create anything to fulfill its need to suck.” – MacDailyNews
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Dan Gillmor: ‘With Mac OS X Tiger, Apple is plainly in the lead today’ – May 05, 2005
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Apple posts QuickTime movies of Mac OS X Tiger features in action – April 13, 2005
Um, the article seems to be gone. The link redirects to the main page, and a search turned up nothing.
maybe they yanked it out of pure embarrassment
The moron-a-thon continues. Lets break down sputnik’s post:
“We in the “real IT world” have never taken the Apple software, OS or hardware seriously. At best it is over priced eye candy.”
Uh, you are an idiot. Anyone who has to justify their position by calling their line fo work “real” and implying anything else is “not real” has low self esteem. Not to mention the fact that you’ve never set foot outside of the place where you work.
“However, we would look at purchasing a iPod for personal use if they were designed around “Windows” standards.”
By “we” do you mean your multiple personalities? Windows “standards? Surely you jest. Just because MS craps out a format, doesnt mean it’s a standard. Is MP3 not a standard? AIFF? Again, sheer idiocy.
“The future of Apple is as a niche hardware manufacture.”
Uh, again, you are an idiot. The PAST for Apple has been as a niche manufacturer. No apologies. No worries. Whats amazing is that for all the seeming ineptitude you Winbloze guys accuse Apple of, they STILL run rings around MS and their bloated crapware that they spend umpteen billions times more in R&D on.
“But for know the Apple platform is dead.”
Ya know, I can’t even imagine that you even can hold a job. “Know”???
MW: Million as in ill give you a million dollars if Apple ever drops Mac OS for Windows.
It would make more sense for M$ to license OSX and sell a “Windows Services” package. It would cost them less than rewritting XP from scratch to make it secure.
The Win Services product could provide .Net and other things that are the core innovations that XP provides. Let Apple do the UI and House Keeping stuff. With Mac going Intel, why not unify the marketplace. M$ would still sell important stuff to business but would no longer need to give anything away: eg: IE and other bundelled stuff.
Let Apple provide Tech Support to the world’s consumers.
HOLY SHIT!! More crap from people who’ve never used a Mac, but think the iPod is keeping Apple in business….!
sputnik, you suck donkey ass
What is it with these morons coming out of the woodwork?
Does this guy know diddly squat about anything?
Man, what is it going to take to convince these idiots that Windows is a half-baked, pale imitation of the Mac OS? What part of quality do they not understand? What part of user interface do they not see?
What freaking stupid idiotic writers! Sheesh!
Maybe I need to start talking to the press.
I wonder…
If 15 years ago someone suggested that Apple switch to Unix, would there be folks like us who are making the same type of comments that are being made in this thread right now?
SJ,
I think whatever joint that “lisa” has been smoking has made the rounds in the press.
Devil’s Advocate…,
It was called MAE:
Tuesday, March 15, 1994
>
>
>Apple Announces First Cross-Platform Macintosh Product for UNIX Workstations
>
> Apple today announced the Macintosh Application Environment (MAE), an
>innovative software product that brings the functionality and ease-of-use of
>the Macintosh operating system to Sun SPARCstations and Hewlett-Packard
>9000 Series 700 workstations.
It was originally announced at the 5/93 Dev Conf. Not quite 15 years ago, but….
Only way Mac will run WindowsOS is if
1) MS buys Apple for OSX.
2) Announces longhorn is dead, and they are replacing it with OSX technology. Will release Windows XP8.0 as interim.
3) Starts talking about new operating system with three API layers, Cocoa, Silicon and FreeBSD, and Windows classic to run WinAPI software that does not meet Silicon standard. Also introduces Silicon dating application.
4) WindowsOS X preview ships and releases Windows XP9.0
5) WindowsOS X 1.0 comes out and Apple Computer begin shipping its computer with WindowsOS X 1.0 (a.k.a. OSX 10.x, or NeXT version ?).
This is blasphemy. Windows is a disgrace if it comes to OS design, like x86 is disgrace if it comes to CPU design. Maybe mac users will have to drink the full cup. But if Apple is ever forced to (not likely) they will make OSX open source and that will be the end of the disgusting Windows OS.
The Mac OS is the soul of the Macintosh.
Apple is not about to sell its soul.
Evidently the powers that be at Engadget agreed that this was ridiculous. The article has been pulled.
Would Apple ever switch to Microsoft Windows?
When a cow laughs does milk come out of it’s nose?
Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?
When Apple started shipping iTunes for Windows, hell froze (I believe that was SJ’s opening statement). It has happened once. May be it will happen again.
If MS announces it will buy Apple, Apple’s stock probably will double within few hours. If Apple announce they are switching to Windows, Apple’s stock probably will see sharp decline within few hours.
This is the dumbest article to date that MacDailyNews has referenced.
With so much garbage speculation about MacTel, I would home that MacDailyNews starts having more discretion in what they choose to post. I’m becoming less and less in reading MDN, which is turning more into a blog than an actually site of useful, filtered news.
“The news business abhors a vacuum and will therefore create anything to fulfill its need to suck.”
Ain’t that the truth!