“My Apple Fool’s day story titled ‘Apple to release PC version of Leopard in Q3 ‘ was eventually recognised as a spoof by most readers. However, there was a discernible sentiment from many readers expressing a wish that it was in fact true,” Stan Beer writes for iTWire. “Now that Macs and PCs are based on the same hardware architecture, could Apple actually successfully put Leopard up against Vista?”
“I believe that most people who have looked at both Vista and Leopard would agree that Leopard is far superior in all aspects – better functionality, usability, stability and so on. Most Mac users love Leopard while many Windows users say they hate Vista. As far as the current generation of proprietary operating systems is concerned, Apple delivered and Microsoft didn’t,” Beer writes.
“Most will argue that Apple, being a hardware company, would never allow such a thing because selling Leopard to the PC market would cannibalise Apple’s Mac sales. I would argue the opposite. The vast majority of Mac users would stay with the products they know and trust. Most of them don’t care or want to know about Windows PCs and those that do have a need for Windows would rather install it on their beloved Macs than buy PCs. There would be very little leakage of the single mouse button brigade because they love the design, the elegance, the coolness and the whole Apple Mac experience,” Beer writes.
MacDailyNews Note: Cute. If disinformation can be cute. Secondary clicking debuted on Macs with the release of Mac OS 8’s contextual menus on July 26, 1997. All Macs (except Mac mini) ship with multi-button mice (Apple’s Mighty Mouse) or secondary-click-capable trackpads on notebooks (enable in System Preferences>Keyboard & Mouse>Trackpad: Check the box “For secondary clicks, place two fingers on trackpad then click the button”). Plug in just about any third-party multi-button mouse and Mac OS X will support it. If only we had a nickel for every Windows-only doofus to whom we’ve explained those facts. Contact or to explain that perpetuating myths about the Mac platform is not appreciated.
Beer continues, “On the other hand, there’s an untapped market of 1 billion PC users, many of whom are highly dissatisfied with Vista and Windows in general, that literally could be ripe for the picking for Apple. Offering a version of Leopard to large sections of that market initially through selected major OEM vendors would without a doubt produce significant software sales and additional revenues for Apple.”
Full article here.
This is a well-worn topic, but the one twist that always interested us was Apple releasing Mac OS X one version behind to selected OEMs. For example, these lucky OEMs would get the most up-to-date Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, certified by Apple to work on their hardware configurations, while Apple would retain the exclusive to the current Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Also related to Mac hardware revenue and its importance to Apple, MacDailyNews’ own SteveJack wrote on March 04, 2004:
I believe analysts and others are missing the big picture: iPod success paves the way for Mac OS X on X86. People have argued for years for and against the release of Mac OS X on Intel (and AMD) commodity hardware, but Apple derives such a large portion of its revenue from hardware that doing so could potentially damage the company beyond repair. But, what if Apple replaces that lost Mac hardware revenue with iPod revenue?
Steve Jobs would then be free to drop what amounts to a hydrogen bomb on Microsoft. Mac OS X that runs on “regular” off-the-shelf x86 hardware. Or partner with a Sony, for example – to insure quality. Years before “Longhorn” even comes close to shipping. Moo.
Sell enough iPods and the OS war is on again in a big way – and for real this time. Steve Jobs knows this and that’s why, right now, iPod is much more important than Mac hardware to Apple Computer, Inc.
SteveJack’s article, “iPod success opens door to Mac OS X on Intel” was published over 4 years ago; and 15 months before Apple announced its plans to switch to Intel processors (June 6, 2005). It’s quite interesting to read that article and its Reader Feedback with hindsight.
NOOOOO LET THEM SUFFER!
No. Next question.
It would be a compatibility nightmare and would cheapen their brand. It will NEVER happen.
21% baby and going up!
It has always been my belief that Apple is going to wait until they reach a threshold – maybe it happens 3-5 years from now – where they can’t squeeze out any more market-share. At this point the Fed might be looking their way, and then they’ll license it to HP and Sony.
Stan Beer – the best name in IT!
This is a moronic article. Now that Apple can deliver competitively priced hardware, why should they offer Mac OS X to run on a PC ? (a) They lose the margin on the hardware sales, and (b) risk compatibiity issues.
Far better to continue as is.
Mac would become Windows, if you could buy OSX off the shelf and try to install it on your $300 Wal-Fart Dull laptop.
Same crappy driver issues that Windoze has…
Apple will never do it. Thankfully so….
All well and good but for one fact:
They tried it once before and it almost took Apple under! Instead of shooting for the cheap end, like Apple figured they would, third party manufacturers went straight for the jugular and Apple’s primary market!
Steve will never allow that to happen again. Their greatest strength is control of the whole widget, and Steve will not relinquish that control.
Not gonna happen. I wish people would stop this. The answer was no 5 years ago, 2 years ago, 8 months ago, 5 minutes ago, and will be no again and as long as Apple is a hardware company that wants to create an entire user experience.
So, no.
“At this point the Fed might be looking their way, ..”
Please explain how this will happen with only 10-15% market share, or even 50% market share.
MDN,
Very interesting idea!
I like. It would be the best way for them to do it. But, you would have to somehow prevent people from buying and installing the new OS, which people would figure out how to do REAL quick.
I guess Beer hasn’t see this:
I don’t think Apple will be doing any such thing…
Give them Panther, but not Tiger.
Apple makes its income on Macs, iPods, and iPhones, which are all hardware.
Apple is a complete hardware/software experience and THAT will not change. OS X on a Dell is like the Queen having to scrub my toilet
with a used toothbrush.
Apple is only about user experience.B
No, that would be the dumbest move ever! Apple makes a ton of money in hardware. I would rather spend the extra dollars for not having a substandard design, crappy fit and finish, stickerless products, random lights and buttons, doohickies everywhee and random lines of plastic molds.
I’ve advocated offering OS X for generic PCs for quite some time, although not at the same price. NeXT used to charge $800 per seat for NeXTSTEP on Intel, and Apple could charge whatever their gross margin is for a middle-of-the-line Mac.
What that would do, is break another barrier for business users, who often can’t buy a machine that they want because of a company-wide purchase agreement that says they get all their desktop machines from HP or Dell, but who do have the authority to spend a grand on a software package.
Selling OS X for the same price for Macs and other makers’ machines would be suicidal. Selling OS X at a considerable premium to the users I just described could be a big win for Apple.
-jcr
It would be good to see OS X on a Sony Vaio or a Toshiba. The hardware would have to be customized with a command button etc.
If I could have got OS X on a Toshiba, I would have probably got one of them, instead of OS X.
Not 10.5.2 ! Apple needs to first fix 5.2. Too many problems with it. 5.1 actually worked better then 5.2. Guess I need to go back to Tiger until Apple gets Leopard straightened out.
For the internet-capable, people can already run OSX on PCs…it’s called OSX86 Project. Works just fine on ThinkPads.
But to the larger question of why, it’s counter-intuitive for a company with a vertical monopoly business model to license a basic component of that model to other companies. Apple is doing just fine by keeping it all in house.
I can’t believe I am going to say this.
But YES.
One version back only.
Tiger for PC.
Only one distributor and they pay a nice fee to Apple too.
People. Think outside the box a bit. The clones killed apple because they were a similar product to what they were already selling.
OTOH, if apple were to incorporate Touch into all their machines then there would be an opportunity to jettison Leopard (non-touch) to the OEMs and retain Leopard Touch for their own hardware.
Now that would be a slam dunk.
What a stupid idea! The hydrogen bomb Apple would be dropping would be on itself.
Also, when will Apple release the iPhone OS to other phone companies? Hello Moto!
NEVER going to happen.
I don’t think it would happen and it would not change my purchases anyway. My MacBook Pro is the best laptop I have ever had. I can run just about anything I need to run thanks to [virtualization]. I can understand why some people need a cheap desktop or laptop, but at that point why not just run Linux (can’t really run Vista very well on a cheap laptop)? Linux is a nice low powered system. I use both Mac on the high end, Linux on the low. Windows only when forced to.
Once the Court will ask Apple to do something about it’s monopoly situation of having 85% of computer market, it might be possible that Apple sells a licence of a really BASIC OSX HOME EDITION to one of the last survivor of PC manufactures… But the case will, before it, be cautionly studied by Apple’s lawers…
Never!!!!!
Why should the people who build computers themselves, suffer????!!!!