License Tiger to PC after Leopard gets released

[Hrgasr]

I think Apple could do well by licensing the old OS X 10.4 Tiger to PC after Leopard is offically released. What do you guys think.

[guiyoforward]

no way - why would they want to jeopardise new and shiny hardware sales? people want to "get a mac", on the cheap, they don't care about .4 .5 or whatever.

[OSXey]

Yes thats a great idea. Lets sit back and watch them not do that great idea! I think we should get more active and start standing in front of the apple factory with signs that read "Set OSX FREE" We could all sing "We shall install OSX some day.

 

Well I didn't think this would ever happen and it happened so really who knows.

[Urbz]

No.

10.4 and 10.5 are two different beasts.

It would cost more money to keep two in development than it would to have one for PCs and Macs. And they WOULD need to spend money getting everything working and making sure there are no security holes, etc.

Mayeb a stripped down leopard, or an unsupported beta version of some kind.

 

Not that I think that'll ever happen.

 

-Urby

[Takuro]

Creating a fully functional release of Tiger for PCs would require far too much time with driver development, tweaking, etc. Not only would they lose tons of money and time in the effort, but they'd be jeopardizing Leopard. It'd be far too easy to strip things from a Tiger CD and modify them to let Leopard run on the same PC.

[Metrogirl]

Quite apart from the idea that Apple would ever countenance OSX on the PC, the big stumbling block is the support issue. Apple's support operation is good by industry standards, it's optimized for the size of their market and it's successful because there is a strictly limited hardware platform and set of configurations. Apple are probably never going to be in a position to offer support for the huge range of PC platforms out there, and selling any version of OSX on an as-is basis would damage the reputation for reliability because, as we all know through bitter experience, getting it to work on Joe Average's hardware can be a nightmare.

 

Imagine the pub conversation:

 

"I bought that OSX for my PC"

"Oh, really? What's it like?"

"Pile of {censored}. The sound doesn't work, can't get wireless to stay up, won't play movies properly."

"What about the support line?"

"I called Apple and they told me go jump. Said it was unsupported and my responsibility and I knew that when I bought it."

"Jeez, Apple sucks big time"

"Yep, I'll never buy anything from them again..."

 

No, Apple would never let that happen

[Patrix]

although I agree with all the arguments saying it won't happen (at least any time soon), let's also remember that 2 years ago, everyone was laughing at the idea of Apple switching to Intel chips..

 

The way I see it, Apple is smart enough to understand the points mentioned here, even though they probably do want OS X to run everywhere. They simply cannot realistically do it YET (not withstanding the arguemtns as to whether Apple wants to or not - I doubt anybody on this forum knows _for sure_).

 

LIke I said, Apple is smart (yeah I'm personifying a company.. just understand I mean the decision makers at Apple). We know they had Rhapsody for x86, and probably maintained x86 builds of OS X all throughout its life. Sounds to me like they either had been planning this move for a LONG time, or were keeping it as a plan B if PPC didn't pan out. They could not make the move immediately however, cause that would've broken too many Classic apps.

 

Instead they chose the slow road of migrating everyone to OS X (cocoa and carbon), then introducing Universal binaries and the Intel OS X, and Rosetta, etc. Smooth transition for the most part, from what I gather.

 

See were I'm going? If indeed Apple were to release OS X for generic PCs, they probably will do some kind of slow rollout like that that will ensure compatibility, functionality, ease of use and good support and whatever else Apple is reknowned for. Release it right now would be a disaster, but who can say what it'll be like 5 years from now?

 

Patrix.

[sigxcpu]

That kind of questions appear when you think with your stomach, instead of brain

[bwhsh8r]

but liek the problem with that would be the public rep would go to {censored} if they did that, because abunch of people would unwittingly buy it and then it would work like {censored} or not at all, then that side of the story would be the one that everyone notices, and not the fact that apple sayed that in the first place. its just not feasable for apples buisness plan ether. so it would be a nightmare for apple anyways.

 

 

max