The Mac is doooomed (tell me I'm crazy)

[macbri]

When OS X on Intel was announced, IIRC, it was added that every release of OS X had been ported to Intel. Seems like an awful lot of work for an operating system that's going to get the chop. Would've been a lot easier to announce Intel Macs running Windows in the first place, doncha think?

Relax. I imagine OS X will be around for a while yet.

[Mikuro]

Ifrit, I'm glad you think my predictions are impossible. But I disagree.

Remember that Cocoa began life as a cross-platform API. You may say it's technically infeasible, but then people said the same thing of moving OS X to Intel, and it turned out Apple had it running in their labs all along. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has similarly been developing Cocoa with cross-platform compatibility in mind all along.

Vista has equivalents of all the core features of the OS X GUI — Quartz Extreme, Core Image, Quartz Compositor, etc. — so it would certainly be possible to use OS X's APIs to build Windows GUIs. Apple could even make Cocoa-Windows apps look like Aqua if they wanted! (That'd be dumb, but hey, they did it with iTunes for a while.)

As for iLife, so much of the interface is self-contained that I think it would be fairly easy. Again, Vista has all the underlying technologies already.

Originally Posted by macbri

When OS X on Intel was announced, IIRC, it was added that every release of OS X had been ported to Intel. Seems like an awful lot of work for an operating system that's going to get the chop. Would've been a lot easier to announce Intel Macs running Windows in the first place, doncha think?

No, I think that would have been suicide for Apple, because they had no weight in the PC world at that time (they still don't, really). Right now, Apple still relies on OS X to sell Mac hardware. As long as they do, it not only makes sense to keep Mac OS X, but it would be suicidal to abandon it. They can't just cut the cord and switch to Windows overnight. It would leave Mac users completely stranded, and Windows users would not embrace Apple's machines quickly/fully enough. They would have no market penetration, and the PR alone would destroy them! If Apple is to succeed as a PC maker, they need to move very gradually — which, as I outlined, they've been doing for years (if you want to look at it that way).

It seems backwards and almost pardoxical, but I really think Apple has made all the right moves for a company that's moving that way. That doesn't mean they are, of course. I included the Mac-centric justifications for each of Apple's stept in my first post, and I believe they're all valid (well, with an obvious exception or two). But each of these actions still fits with the theory of Apple moving to Windows.

[Tommo]

I have to agree with Mikuro on ost of this, but in the end as with all business decisions it will come down to money. Apple has been moving away from the computer as a computer. and more to the computer as a media centre, as have Microsoft for the last few years.

I don't think this will necessarily spell the death of OSX, but I would not be surprised if in 10 years time Apple no longer manufactured computers. They have a small, but significant market share but that is not based on its hardware, but its software because to run OSX you have to have a Mac, if that tie is broken then OSX may flourish and eat into the various Linux distros that abound in the computing world not to mention some Windows systems.

I happily run both a Mac and a Windows PC, but when it comes to replacing them, I will have to think long and hard about the Mac mainly due to cost, they are still more expensive than equivalent non-Apple hardware. Unlike some of the other posters to this thread I do not have enough disposable income to choose something expensive just because it looks better.

[limike28]

The sky is falling for sure. I think if Apple was going to kill off Macs, or OS X there would have been other times that they would have been more likely to it.

Macworld may not have had any new macs, but considering what was released I think that's ok. The appleTV and iPhone were interesting and compelling announcements. Would a new macbook that's a speed bump release been a better keynote? I doubt it.

I have no doubt that Apple will continue to branch out into more areas, and I think you will see the traditional "computer" will evolve.

As for long term predictions, 10 years down the road, who knows? Personally, I think Apple gets what is important to consumers; a system that works as designed, is easy to use, and let's the consumer get to the data and information that they want in a format that works and is suitable for the device at hand.

Apple gets that where we need to be going is most people want to be consumers. They don't want to be users, programmers, or their own IT support.

[g/re/p]

Originally Posted by Mikuro

Tell me why I'm crazy. I'd love to be convinced.

You're crazy!.........

[jacobdol]

Apple did not announce the OS X release because:
1. It's not quite ready.
2. It's waiting for Vista push to the consumers
3. It's waiting for Vista upgrades to start creating all kinds of problems on PCs
I think we will have to wait for a few more months before OS X is being released.

[Ferdinand]

I agree somehow with Mikuro. The main point is and stays:

Long ago without Mac OS (mostly 9 and X) Apple wouldn't have survived. Now this changed.

Now, they don't need it anymore to stay alive! They have iPhone, iPod, iTunes, AppleTV and more. Of course it's a great thing. But Apple isn't centered about Mac OS anymore, rather about mobiles, set-top boxes, mp3 players, soon TVs and who knows what else!

[ScottW]

Ah! I disagree. Apple has been promoting the Mac more than I have ever seen. The Mac/PC guy ads are very creative and some of the most informative Mac commercials ever made. I rarely watch a show on TV that are in real peoples homes, doing moves, or decorating changes that there is not a Mac on their computer desk. I mean, I could almost say it is crazy the number of Macs people have on these shows vs some other platform.

Look at Apple's financial numbers, the Mac is growing like crazy, 48% of those who buy a Mac at an apple store are NEW owners.

If Apple didn't care about Mac, they wouldn't have moved it to Intel, they wouldn't be marketing it, and they would remain cutting edge on OS X.

The lack of new Macs at MacWorld just means that Steve had something more exciting to announce... and I am sorry to say, that a bump in the processor speed is not going to dazzle the crowd. We all know that, we Apple fanatics like to be dazzled!

I would like to see some new form factors for the different models, but quite honestly, I think the Intel transition took up more than a few spare cycles of peoples time. Changing the design was probably not the best way to come out with new hardware. But, the MacBooks are different, and I bet we will see some transition to new form factors in the next 12 months for one ore more systems.