“If OS X were distributed for generic PCs, two things would happen: OS X would be second only to Windows as the world’s most-pirated commercial software, and Mac hardware would be shut out of some of the world’s largest markets,” Tom Yager writes for InfoWorld. “Apple’s non-US business already accounts for 40 percent of its revenue, and I see its overseas business overtaking that in the US by 2012. Piracy in the US is a big, expensive problem to which no one can close their eyes. But elsewhere, software vendors don’t just lose sales to piracy. Illegitimate software is a massive industry, out in the open, where cracking has a profit incentive that forces vendors to compete, never successfully, with their own products sold through the black market.”
“As it stands, the Mac, among its other uses, is a dongle for OS X and Mac applications created by Apple and Mac developers… If you run OS X on a machine that wanders outside that small number of predictable configs, a) you’re a sitting duck for any user-mode app or Dashboard widget that gives your box a sniff; and b) when your cracked OS X won’t boot–and that will happen–you’re permanently SOL. You can’t ask for help without giving away that you’re running the crack,” Yager writes. “So if you wonder why Apple doesn’t sell OS X as a generic OS, remember these four words: You can’t pirate hardware.”
Full article here.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
How Microsoft benefits from rampant piracy – April 18, 2006
Cringely predicts Apple Boot Camp for non-Apple PCs to allow Mac OS X to run on generic x86 boxes – April 07, 2006
Dvorak: Steve Jobs eventually intends for Apple’s Mac OS X to run on any x86 PC – August 09, 2005
Apple setting stage for Windows PC users to demand Mac OS X for any x86 PC? – June 25, 2005
Dvorak predicts Mac OS X for generic x86, Apple ‘Office’ suite, dawn of Mac viruses and spyware – June 13, 2005
iPod success opens door to Mac OS X on Intel – March 04, 2004
Yep, good point.
Actually Tom, you can pirate hardware. It just cost more.
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N.
Quote: “So if you wonder why Apple doesn’t sell OS X as a generic OS, remember these four words: You can’t pirate hardware”
Remember these four words: “You can virtualize hardware.”
Certainly true, with all the petitions over the last five years to put OS X on x86, it’s been a bit disapointing the number of those who just don’t care and seem quite happy with windows. Sigh! This must be the feeling the devout have when the world rejects the truth and follows the other 90 percent.
If Apple really wanted to prevent OS X from running in beige boxes, it would NEVER change processors from ppc to intel…
I have to say that running Windows XP on my MacBook Pro via Boot Camp is bliss. Windows is extremely snappy, I can play all the games, get all of the software, no hassles. I usually run Mac OS X since it is totally superior, but it sure is nice to have Windows right there when you need it for application support. Mac OS X is, after all, just the operating system.
Mac OS X on generic hardware would only make Mac OS X look bad. The Mac experience is half hardware and half software, and Apple knows it.
Windows XP on a MacBook Pro makes Windows look good, funny enough. Now if my damn mouse button on the laptop had more than one goddamned button. Who wants to tote a mouse around with their laptop?
Bill Gates loves pirates. It makes Windoze the defacto standard. Bill will sell the pirates protection to get some of his money back.
This is all aside from the fact that OSX on generic PC’s wuld ultimately be the train wreck that Windows is for usablility and security.
I wouldn’t walk into a Chevy dealer and ask for a Jaguar engine. Why should people care if they have to buy a Mac to get OSX.
ppc:
“If Apple really wanted to prevent OS X from running in beige boxes, it would NEVER change processors from ppc to intel…”
Yes, but Apple could also have simply closed it’s Mac unit in a few years as laptop/small form factor PPC chips became horribly slow compared to Intel/AMD processors. IBM had no interest in making a low-power G5, and if Freescale is so great why did Motorola jetison it?
I’m not going to pay $4500 for a hobbled down CPU and GPU Mac Book Pro.
For that kind of money I’ll wait for the QuadTels to arrive.
Heat kills laptops, thus the machines are hobbled to keep the heat down. But Apple oes ahead and announces Core Du0 2.0, 2.16 and so on, not telling us it’s less performance than a Dual 2 Ghz G5 from three years ago.
Switching to Intel processors bought laptops some time, but there is no way any processor maker is going to get more performance out of then and manage to keep the heat down.
We will all just have to accept laptops will be weak and need to have a powerhouse desktop at home.
Oh another thing, I’ve been playing Quake4 on my rig and it’s nowhere near the the box killer that Doom3 is.
I got the options at maximum and the enemy bots are rendered pretty low and move slow (not from lack of GPU either) It seems this is how they are making the games so it will run on most hardware.
Before, like with Doom3, it was jacked up to hopefully take advantage of more powerful hardware coming down the pipe, I think that’s not going to happen so they reduced the quality.
Given the Core Duo is almost the same as a Dual 2 Ghz G5, tells us it’s true.
OSX will never be sold for Generic PC’s because Apple is a computer company that makes its own computers. They just happen to make a really great OS to go along with its computers. If they sold the OS separately to anyone there computer business would go down the tubes.
It’s not going to happen so if you want to run OSX buy a Mac. Then if you want to run Windows as well you can.
I’m so glad I’m part of the elite Apple “club”. Please Apple keep it that way! I’ll pay the extra $$$ if needed, even though it costs less to have a good Mac than a total crap Dell/Win disgusting PC.
Since I switched to Apple, I totally enjoy my work on the computer. Thank you God for the Mac and OS X!
I feel sorry for the Windoze uneducated crowd out there.
Keep Windoze software AWAY from me!
I’d like a count on MDN (but all media, really) on the number of stories since Jan Intel Mac debut that focuses on Windows on Mac vs Mac itself.
This better end soon. In a couple years just about ALL the stories will be “Improve Quake3 framerate under BootCamp”
Mac IS OS X.
4 now.
I’d like it to stay that way.
plzthnku
OS X for generic PCs will happen whether Apple wants it to or not – it already has.
When the rest of the PC hardware industry catches up with EFI, along with Universal Binaries, there will be some very good cracked versions of OS X out there that will be just as good, fast, and reliable as an Intel Mac box.
Add to this the ability to run Windows apps without Windows installed, Apple will have the Microsoft killer OS.
I also think that – eventually – software developers are going to reaslize the tremendous benefits of universal binary development and demand the same from Microsoft – thus forcing Microsoft to rewrite the Windows code (Vista successor?). This would give consumers the ultimate computing experience (can you say iPod?) – run any application you choose on any OS that you choose on any box that you choose- just plug it in… Nirvana!
Once the cat is out of the bag, Apple will have no choice but to license OS X for qualified generic PCs or risk losing $millions and letting Microsoft catch up.
Macromancer sez “I wouldn’t walk into a Chevy dealer and ask for a Jaguar engine.”
Uhh, no…you would have to go to a Ford dealer for that, these days…
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It’s odd, though how many people just…..don’t……get….it.
OS X is the carrot with which Apple gets people to buy their computers. It always has been.
MW: getting, as in ‘isn’t this argument getting old already?’
You don’t know the history of pirating software. I do.
Ibuschjr says: “… Apple could also have simply closed it’s Mac unit in a few years as laptop/small form factor PPC chips became horribly slow compared to Intel/AMD processors. IBM had no interest in making a low-power G5, and if Freescale is so great why did Motorola jetison it?”
Motorola spun off Freescale b/c it saw cell phones as a business it could be more profitable in, rather than CPUs. Managing such disparate businesses was proving to be difficult (jack of all trades, master of none). The move has proven to be a win-win for both companies – Moto is making money hand over fist on what it does best, and a more focused Freescale has become the kind of CPU company Apple always said it wanted. There’s currently available a dual core G4 with the same cach size, same FSB speeds (and DDR2 to boot), roughly the same clockspeeds, and even better energy consumption than Core Duo. Just check their website – you’ll see it. A 64bit version is supposed to be ready sometime in 2007-08. Meanwhile PASemiconductor is set to launch a 64bit mobile CPU based on IBM patents sometime at the end of this year (with all the same goodies that both G4 and Core have).
The Big Lie is that Apple dropped PPC for performance reasons – heat-per-watt, or whatever – it didn’t. MacBook is just as toasty and even more of an energy hog than the old single core G4 PB. PPC chips as substantially cheaper too – the low profit margin MacMini is $100 more expensive for good reason (even with crappy integrated graphics). Jobs didn’t even drop PPC because of the superior supply capabilities of Intel – the painfully slow MacBook availability should put that one to rest.
No, they stopped using PPC b/c Intel and it’s Viiv/DRM technologies (for video lockdown, more than OS lockdown) gave them more leverage in bringing the media content providers onboard with the video-centric future Apple is going to be focusing on. That, and I’m sure xScale processors for uber-iPods are mixed in there as well. Basically, they traded a healthier CPU ecosystem (PPC with it’s three vendors) for a single sick-man supplier in x86, in the hopes that video will launch the company into the stratosphere more quickly than just duking it out in the traditional PC wars. All the rest of this stuff regarding XP and Vista compatability is gravy for what Jobs sees as the real golden goose.
MDN magic word: “costs”
As in, “I hope the supposed benefits indeed outweigh the costs”. Apple will be in for a rough ride if they don’t.
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As long as Mac market share is going up, even at a slow rate, Apple should just keep doing what it’s doing.
But once the Intel transition is complete it will be easy for Apple to “flick the switch” and license OS X at some future time of its choosing. A limited, tightly controlled licensing scheme (like the HP iPod) could have benefits. Apple could start by reviving OS X Server for Intel.
oh, shut up.. I love osx and apples as muuch as the next guy, but cmon, release it for standard PCs, I got an asus sli board, and two 7900GTXs dying for OSX.
Apple owns half the PC manufacture market anyway, shhhhhhhhh
Connor MacBook : “As long as Mac market share is going up, even at a slow rate, Apple should just keep doing what it’s doing.”
mmm… Apple sold 4% more Macs in year over year trading, the PC average increase is more than 10%. Can you say Market Share Decrease?
iPod halo? iPods work fine on PC’s … enough said.
Boot Camp, and it’s inevitable Leopard replacement could be Apples last big chance to make an impression with increased share, otherwise we’ll just have to accept a small 2-3% but very profitable and healthy Apple.
The reason why Macs are Macs and work as well as they do, is because Apple controls both hardware and software.
With the limited hardware configurations Apple has to support, it’s easier to retain a seamless and elegant experience that the Mac and OS X have always been noted for.
Stuff OS X into generic Dell-boxes and you have instant incompatibility nightmares. The skyrocketing costs of tech support for all those vanilla DOSboxes alone would take massive bites out of Apple’s profits.
Not a good thing.
Macs are actually a bargain when you figure the longer useful life of the machines and the low cost of support and repair. Yeah a $299 box LOOKS cheap, but when you pay 10x that for upkeep and time, that “advantage” becomes a liability in a hurry.
“Apple sold 4% more Macs in year over year trading, the PC average increase is more than 10%. Can you say Market Share Decrease?”
That was for the quarter just gone, as the Intel effect finally kicked in. A coupla quarters back Apple was up 35%, way above the industry average. Pretty much every stat has Apple gaining share.
Andrew!
Enough already! You’ve made your point! You don’t like laptops! You love desktops! We get it already! No more need to make more than one post on *every* page talking about waiting for the “quadtels!”