OS X ON PC what if...

vic

vic

RRRrrrRRRrrrRRrrr
this is a what if game, so play along nicely.

what would you say if apple DID ship os X for the PC?

let me tell you why i think they should, and why they should not:

why yes

1. More games for os x whether you use a mac computer or a pc computer.

2. more software whether you use a mac computer or a pc computer

3. it's a perfect bridge between the two worlds

3. the world would learn that apple is not such a bad company (that is from the pc user point of view) and might start buying apple hardware

4. if one day os x is the only operating sys on earth from a consumer point of view and unix admin (maybe) the peripheral developers would not have a hard time making pluginds and drivers for either pc or mac hardware especially if the world is headed to fire-wire and usb.

5. microsoft will die (get sick the least)

why not

1. apple want to increase sales on their hardware and they see this as the opportunity.

2. Microsoft will/is threaten/ing apple not to

3. microsoft is controlling apples decisions

4. apple is a dumbass



 
Hypothetically:

1 & 2) games are irrelevent. YOu are supposing that people are gonna flock to OS X which is not the case. IF that were the case people would have flocked to other *free* and capable OSs in the past. NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP were on the PC, BeOS is on the PC, Solaris is on the PC, and countless more examples but they did not/are not faring well. People will *not* switch over, except for a very limited crowd that wants to test it out. What makes you think that devellopers who are not making mac games/software now are gonna do so if there is OS X on intel ? Programming in windows is different from programming in OS X. Devellopers use windows APIs and windows technologies like directX for their windows programms and apple/NeXT APIs to use their apple products.

3) Perfect bridge...dont think sooooo. SAme reason as above.

4) PC users are dumbheaded. They will always think that apple, and any other OS copmany is *bad* because they dont run windows (unless u get an educated user that has used another OS other than windows SERIOUSLY )

5) MS will NOT die and will not get sick unless the goverment breaks them up just like they did in the AT&T and the standard oil cases.



1) Apple WILL NOT increase hardware sales.

2) Maybe

3) Perhaps

4) No way
 
firs of all openstep and nextstep were not as powerfull OR as good looking as osx, nothing right now is, that is why i think + right marketing moves, apple can get people flocking to os x there are online petitions run by people on intel asking for osx badly, so i don't think it's just a few people that want to test it out...
as for the rest of the response, you may be right or wrong, we can only speculate
 
Porting the Mac OS to the Intel platform would kill Apple. The whole point of Apple is that they make not only the software, but the computers as well.

Apple tried licensing out their hardware platform a few years back, if you recall. I owned a Motorola StarMax Mac clone for years. This was the darkest period of Apple's history, and they had to pull the plug on the clones or else they would have gone under fast.

Bottom line, Apple's hardware is better than anything the rest of the PC industry has to offer. If it wasn't, then they would not be making hardware, but ultimately I feel that as long as the current x86/Pentium hardware platform exists, Windows will be the dominant OS on it. The average person doesn't even upgrade their current OS, let alone switch. Apple would face the same fate as Be if they were an OS maker.
 
Not that I agree with what I am about to say, but it is food for thought in this conversation...

I know many who enjoy the Mac interface and OS X, but never would spend the money for a Macintosh... because they already own 4 windows boxes. These same people are happy to use one box for a Redhat Linux box... and if they could use one of their boxes for Mac OS X, they would do that as well.

Unless your buying iMacs... systems don't come as cheap. Granted, you get what you pay for... but for people to migrate from one system to another, they have to have time to experience the OS, before committing to be a $1200+ Mac hardware system.

The fact that Apple creates its own hardware is a good thing, because they do make the software. If OS X runs on Intel based platform... and Winblows users test out the software on their own platform for machines... they *may* be more willing to purchase a Apple Macintosh which will run better with Mac OS X, than "compatible" Intel platforms.

Food for thought.

Admin
 
I think the long term effect would be a significant decrease in Apple's (already limited) market share - in other words, the demise of Apple.

Here's why I think so:

1. Many of the Mac faithful would convert to Windows.

Most consumers shop for bargains. If Mac OS X is available for Intel-based machines, many of the Mac faithful will buy cheap PCs. They will buy Intel-based machines not only for the price, but also for the opportunity to run all the wonderful Windows software they've been missing. Once they spend enough time in the Windows environment and outside their "comfort zone" (Mac OS), they will realize that living with the foibles of Windows is a reasonable price to pay for more games, more software, and more compatibility. After all, Mac OS X is also squarely outside the "comfort zone" of the classic Mac user (and has its own foibles). So, if you're a classic Mac user and you buy an Intel machine, the choice of operating systems is no longer black-and-white, it's shades of gray.

One more point: There's a good chance the software situation would get worse if Mac OS X was released for Intel-based machines. Software publishers would be less inclined to port their products to Mac OS if many Mac users have the option of running Windows.

2. Not many Windows users would convert to Mac OS X.

If your comfort zone is Windows (i.e. you've lived with its defects long enough that you no longer view them as defects), why would you switch to a completely foreign environment with less software? You wouldn't. You might buy OS X and install it, but mostly as a curiosity. This is what my Windows friends do with Linux. They call themselves Linux users, but when they want to do real work (or play), they switch back to their comfort zone: Windows.
 
Monolith (above) has a good point. Comfort zones are called comfort zones for a good reason, and people are reluctant to try new things. Those of us who think we know linux because we dual boot are <u>really just playing around</u>.

Most people I talk to are completely ignorant about OS's they don't use. This goes for both Mac-, Windows- and *nix- users. I often have people ask me if <u>anyone makes software</u> for the Titanium I bring into my office. "No, Apple has stood in the face of Microsoft the Competition Slayer for years because no one makes software for the Mac." Oh, please.

What really amazes me are the people who are truly offended (like my boss) that the world would dare support <u>more than one operating system</u>. It's as if they're directly harmed by people using other OS's.

<strong>I hope we never do go to one OS everywhere. Imagine the fun viruses would have then</strong>. Besides, I've yet to see a single OS with all the strengths of the major OS's combined into one platform.

-Robert
 
I think it should be ported to x86. I have three PeeCee's, two Sun Workstations and various other hardware and systems including a couple old macs.

I run mainly Windows2K and Linux on the x86's, Solaris on the Suns and MacOS 7.5.3 on the old macs. Now to the point, I'd like to try the OS I'm going to be stuck with before I buy the hardware to run it. osX looks very, very nice but how does it run? I wouldn't know because I don't have a Mac. From what I've messed with of it at the local Circut City on an iMac it was damn nice but worth buying the machine over? perhaps

All I'm trying to say is that's a big step just to try out the latest Operating System.

Just what I think of the situation.

(I do plan on getting a G4 sometime soon)
 
What if it was as easy to port a windows app to osx as it is to port an existing mac app to osx?

Make it a three step process like on the mac side of things. First run the windows apps in a classic environment like virtual pc, then allow the programmers to change about 10% of the code to run as a native osx app on x86 boxes, then the final step would be a full cocoa app.

Hardy

 
Nice points Hardy.

Apple would have to provide some sort of classic environment for windows apps and something similar to carbon. Apple would also probably (if at all) release the port when there is already significant apps available for OS X. Some people seem to think it would require some sort of effort to compile a program for both the x86 and PPC versions of OSX. If you use the same API (eg cocoa) it would be a simple recompile. Hit one button and it would compile for both.

One problem to think about though, how would the PC Carbon equivalent handle menus? Windows apps have menus in the windows. If it abstracted enough you could probably just put the active window's menu at the top of the screen.

peter
 
Back in the days of Rhapsody there was a plan named Red Box which Rhapsody would be able to run windows apps under Rhapsody. I do not know how dar apple got with it, if they even made any initial developement on it.

At this point I have to stress the point that "it's the hardware...stupid!" With OS X, on mac, you get a seamless integration because you only have a select hardware base that you make drivers for, and you make sure that there are no problems between then. IF apple goes forward with OS X on intel
(which I hope to GOD it wont), apple will have to either make a specific hardware configuration standrad and only people with such configed systems may run it. The other alternative would be to become like windows and BeOS. Development would stagnate, and problems would arise from the miriad upon miriad of devices available for the x86 hardware, driver conflicts, not enought drivers.... aaahhh and then people will say that OS X sux.

Furthermore, apple was, is and will probably be a computer company, meaning software & hardware integration, just like sun and sgi. If it does this people who have PCs wont have an incentive to get a mac, even though hardware wise its better than the two, since PeeCee people are stuck up on the Mhz myth. Apple sales will be canibalized due to cheaper hardware. Remember the clones ? Personally I want apple to survive as a computing platform because it works for me, its more efficient and I can do stuff with it.

Admiral
 
I don't think apple should do it either. However, it may be useful to do a x86 port so that they could offer their own AMD/intel powered macs. I'm not suggesting that apple make PCs. I think it may be a possibility when the number of cocoa apps increases, to swap out the PPC, for a Duron for example, on low end machines to drop the price. Still use custom motherboards, Roms, open firmware ,etc but use a cheaper chip.

peter
 
well...
you cant always look at the price of things. You also got to look at performance. My father always says that "cheap meat is for the Dogs". Meaning what you pay for is what you get.


Admiral
 
This idea was played out in 97-98 when Apple was porting OPENSTEP to PowerPC and developing Rhapsody. Most (meaning all) OPENSTEP developers at the time used Intel-based system, and Apple's first Developer Release of Rhapsody (Rhapsody DR1) was able to run on both Macintosh and Intel-based hardware. Because the directory structure was almost exactly the same as OPENSTEP (with all the Next- directories) most OPENSTEP apps ported to Rhapsody DR1 for Intel with little or no reworking, and just needed to be recompiled for Rhapsody DR1 for PPC. At this time the nunber of apps for both were about the same. When Apple released the second Developer Release (Rhapsody DR2) the directory structure had changed(see: http://www.devworld.apple.com/macosx/server/rhapdev/technotes/RTN0004_DR2Diffs.html ), which ment that developers would have to make significant changes in their apps (this is the version that Mac OS X Server 1.0 would be based on). Even though dual compiling apps for both Intel and PPC versions didn't actually envolve that much extra work, the number of PPC apps out numbered the number of Intel apps by 2:1. This is not even taking into account the fact that the Intel version of Rhapsody DR2 didn't come with Blue Box, and would not be able to run any existing Mac apps. So developers who were using Intel based systems at the beginning of 1997 had switched to PPC system by the end of 1998.

Now look at this from Apple perspective. Every new OS has to deal with the Applications Barrier (users won't use an OS that doesn't have many apps, developers won't make apps for an OS that doesn't have many users). Rhapsody for PPC had twice as many native apps as the Intel version, plus apps that could run in Blue Box, and Apple decided not to release it as a client OS (they added a package of server apps and renamed it Mac OS X Server). The Intel version died a hard death, and nothing is going to bring it back.

Apple, faced with the Applications Barrier on their own platform when long time Mac development firms said that they would not take the time and energy to rewrite their apps for Rhapsody, took major efforts to create Carbon so these firms could port their apps more easily. Apple found out the hard way that even with Carbon, these firms would not port to an OS that didn't have any users. That is why Mac OS X was rushed to the public before hardware compatiblity was completed. Adobe, Microsoft, Corel, and Macromedia said they would only port their apps if users already existed for Mac OS X.

Now knowing all of that, know that Carbon is based on MacOS APIs (dependant on PPC), Classic actually uses the MacOS (dependant on PPC), and how few Cocoa apps there actually are, Apple would have no chance of getting past the Applications Barrier on the Intel platform. Apple could make a better investment by buying beach front proporty in Arizona and Nevada.
 
Apple's Enterprise Web Development environment, WebObjects, (Versions 4 & 4.5) runs using a cross platform environment, called YellowBox. (This is what has evolved into Cocoa) YellowBox Applications, if written VERY well, could be completely cross platform. For example Project Builder (look on the MacOS X developer CD) that comes with WO 4.5 is more or less the same under Mac OS X Server (1.2) and Windows (NT / 2000) The WO CD also comes with Stickies, SimpleText and other 'traditional' Mac OS applications. YellowBox, is (was) a COOL thing.

Unfortunately, the future of yellow box, is, to put it mildly, uncertain, but it looks like it will be pulled.

Ho Hum, Eid
 
There used to be Yellow Box for win95/NT but I do not know if it was developmental or a full fledged product. I used to hear about it ...but no more.
 
Yellow Box was the give the OpenStep runtime environment when Apple bought NeXT. this environment originally was designed to run on top of other operating systems (OpenStep ran on Windows NT and Solaris, Yellow Box on Windows NT/95), and was design to work like object oriented development environment of OPENSTEP/Rhapsody. This was not designed to be the same as Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) or Web Objects, both of which need addition frameworks added to OPENSTEP/Rhapsody/Mac OS X in order to function. Yellow Box was dropped by Apple for the same reasons that Rhapsody for Intel was dropped. Almost a complete lack of developer interest and the migration of customers from OpenStep Enterprise during the years that Rhapsody was being developed (Apple did try to support and maintain OpenStep Enterprise clients after taking over NeXT, but most moved to other solutions supplied by Microsoft and Sun). The sad, but current story is covered in this Stepwise article, http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/2000-06-21.01.html , including the fact that objective-c is going to be dropped from Web Objects in the next release in favor of Java.

I currently have Yellow Box running on Windows NT 4.0 sp6, I have only two applications for it, TIFFany 3.0 and OpenBase 6.0, that compared to 50+ apps I have for my ThinkPad running Rhapsody DR2. EOF, WO, and Yellow Box are similar, but still very different.
 
.... in my absentmindedness I did not realize who u were lol... (note to self: look at ID of poster before you reply :p )

Dont forget abiworld :)

(you do have it for yellow box ...right ? ;) )


Admiral
 
That was the Windows version, I couldn't bare to use more Microsoft products than I absolutely had too.
 
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