Johnny Blaze
Big Baby Jesus
Discuss
Leopard run on PC's?
- Thread starter Johnny Blaze
- Start date
MrNivit1
Registered
Will not happen. Apple makes $ on hardware it sells (with some pretty good profit margins to boot). This is also why it has the iTunes store; to sell iPods. We'll see some HaK0rZ get around the Leopard am-I-running-on-a-Mac checker, but it'll be like the workarounds that are already running today with Tiger.
Johnny Blaze
Big Baby Jesus
Yea but I figured since the intel switch and whatnot they might. guess not.
Lt Major Burns
"Dicky" Charlteston-Burns
be interesting to see just how locked-down it'll be, like how much effort and technology they put into it
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
...or how many lawyers they throw at it. If it does ever make it to a generic PC box, of course it will be illegal, and wouldn't be able to be discussed here beyond the theoretical.
I, for one, don't want Leopard to run on anything but a Mac. As others have said here, Apple won't let it happen via a number of different measures and means: locking the software down, doing hardware checks at boot/install time, and by throwing a lot of legal weight around to shut down those who try and hack it.
Apple can always choose to take MS head on and sell Mac OS X for PC licenses. However: It doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon, since Apple depends too much on hardware sales right now - as has been mentioned. Doesn't mean it'll *never* happen, though. But it'd certainly have to make sense for Apple financially, before they'd go there.
You also have to look at how such things happened in the past. I know of two great operating systems that got rid of their hardware, went PC and tried to get their feet into the PC OS cake. For both OpenStep and BeOS, these were their last steps, actually. (Of course OpenStep survived as Mac OS X, but that's rather a rebirth than a continuous life, although RacerX might disagree - but that'd be semantics...)
I guess Apple's goal is to actually sell more and more Macs and gain a strong position before opening the OS to other PCs instead of the other way 'round.
You also have to look at how such things happened in the past. I know of two great operating systems that got rid of their hardware, went PC and tried to get their feet into the PC OS cake. For both OpenStep and BeOS, these were their last steps, actually. (Of course OpenStep survived as Mac OS X, but that's rather a rebirth than a continuous life, although RacerX might disagree - but that'd be semantics...)
I guess Apple's goal is to actually sell more and more Macs and gain a strong position before opening the OS to other PCs instead of the other way 'round.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
That is pretty much the way it happened... and had Apple not bought NeXT, NeXT was planning on dumping their OS business altogether (moving their users to Sun) and just doing Enterprise Objects and WebObjects.fryke said:
But the financial end of a move to PCs is massive!
For the sake of argument lets work with these numbers... we'll say Apple makes $100 on each retail copy of Mac OS X, and we'll also say that the average price for Apple hardware is $2000 and the average profit on that hardware is $800 (easy numbers, but I'm sure they are within the ballpark). Let us also put Apple's market share at 4% for this.
Apple would need to sell 8 copies of Mac OS X for every Mac that isn't bought because someone put Mac OS X on another companies PC. If this cuts Apple's hardware business in half (dropping their new hardware market share to 2%) how much market share would Apple have to gain with Mac OS X on PCs to brake even?
Apple would have to have 16% market share (a total of 18% including the 2% from their own hardware sales) to make up for the loss of half their hardware sales.
And we are strictly talking about profits above and beyond what it cost Apple to make either hardware or software.
Now factor in the fact that Microsoft has pointed out that about 35% of Windows installations are pirated. Why would Apple get off any easier than Microsoft in this area?
So Apple would actually need to reach nearly 23% market share (or 25% total) to brake even. And that is only if they lose half their hardware business. If they dropped their hardware all together they would need about 50% market share to stay as profitable as they are right now (making $100 for each copy of Mac OS X).
Even if they could reach 10% market share (which they possibly could by dropping their hardware business and letting everyone just buy Mac OS X for any PC), that is about one fifth of what they are currently making with their hardware business at 4% market share.
When you look at it this way, Mac OS X on PC hardware is (from Apple's point of view) a really bad idea!
I agree that providing OS X on generic PC is a massively bad idea. One of the huge benefits of OS X, or historically, the "Mac" experience is the fact that Apple "makes the whole widget". They build the box and the OS. That has huge implications. It's a big part of why things "just work", because Apple doesn't have to worry about every stinking video card on the planet or millions of third party components.
In other words, the OS X experience on a generic PC will be compromised, making it less desirable and imminently extinct.
But then, I never thought in a million years Apple would proactively allow Windows to run on their machines so what do I know? (But that's a whole different situation, obviously).
In other words, the OS X experience on a generic PC will be compromised, making it less desirable and imminently extinct.
But then, I never thought in a million years Apple would proactively allow Windows to run on their machines so what do I know? (But that's a whole different situation, obviously).
But just think how many potential switchers you might get if you allowed them to use OSX on existing kit without having to fork out Apple's high prices for hardware before they have been able to try the OS. This may lead to more hardware sales long term if it will be almost certain to run better on Apple kit.
Sunnz
Who wants a stylus?
I doubt many people will get a Mac if they can just run OSX...
If you already has a computer that not very likely you'll get a new one just because it runs slightly better.
Most people are probably not going to even know the difference as they probably won't even goto a retail store to try out the Macs.
Further more, Apple will then have no control on what kinds of hardware/configuraion that OSX are going to run, and as things could get messy... I certainly rather to have a better OS then having a larger userbase.
If you already has a computer that not very likely you'll get a new one just because it runs slightly better.
Most people are probably not going to even know the difference as they probably won't even goto a retail store to try out the Macs.
Further more, Apple will then have no control on what kinds of hardware/configuraion that OSX are going to run, and as things could get messy... I certainly rather to have a better OS then having a larger userbase.
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
Unfortunately, this argument no longer holds water -- there are plenty of comparisons on the 'net now that debunk the idea that Apple's prices are any higher than any other PC retailer. In fact, they're lower now for comparable hardware.
Lt Major Burns
"Dicky" Charlteston-Burns
plus, people will see it, go 'oh that's cool', but not really scratch the surface of OSX. to do that, you've got to take the plunge and buy a mac. that's the only way you'll give up that much time and energy switching to an entirely new platform: to justify the cost of your spendings.
Sunnz
Who wants a stylus?
Some components are much "cooler" than PC counter-parts too, e.g. magsafe on Macbooks, and the slot loading Sata thing on Mac Pro, all really cool and nice stuff... definately worth every penny you pay for.
Johnny Blaze
Big Baby Jesus
So if it is such a terrible idea for Apple for monetary reasons, why did Microsoft allow Apple to run windows? The argument that Apple makes so much money off of hardware and this is why they wouldnt is bunk. By my guess the biggest pc supplier is dell, who also has higher prices and better quality product than the cheaper suppliers. But regardless of the fact that they are more expensive (the prices are probably on par with Apple), people are still willing to pay more for a quality product. Not only is Apple a better quality product than Dell, it is also much more suave looking giving it more appeal than a Dell. And this my friends, is the reason that pc's should run windows (although I would rather not have it that way).
Mikuro
Crotchety UI Nitpicker
Well, that's one way to spin it. Another way is to say that you can buy a PC laptop for $300-500 less than a MacBook. Or a desktop (with monitor, keyboard and mouse) for $100-200 less than a Mini.
Are these PCs "comparable"? Maybe not, but I think the better question is, does anyone buying them want them to be?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Apple could make cloning work if they only let the cloners target markets Apple currently ignores. e.g., the low-end market.
But that's very different than making OS X run on any ol' PC. I think that be a bad move right now. Maybe someday when Apple doesn't rely on hardware sales quite so much, but for now, they'd need to go out of their way not to cannibalize their own sales with any Mac-on-PC initiative.
Mikuro
Crotchety UI Nitpicker
Because...Microsoft doesn't make computers. They probably make MORE money on retail copies of Windows (which you'd need to buy to run it on a Mac) than they do on OEM-licensed copies of Windows. So Apple supporting Windows is probably good for their bottom line. (Also, I'm not sure they could have stopped Apple if they wanted to.)
Sunnz
Who wants a stylus?
You got a point there. But, IMHO, Apple is like Mercedes, and shouldn't lower the quality to fit low-end customers, Mac Mini should be their baseline... if they make anything lower, they should release under a different brand.
Mac prices are lower for comparable hardware, were are you getting your prices at. for $1100 your can get a dual core Acer laptop a 100 gb hd and ATI 1600 128mb the same card in the lower end MBP. So you arugment does not hold water.