[THEORY] Is Apple plotting against the hackintosh community yet again?

[iWin32]

First things first: I apologize to the mods if this isn't the right place to post this.  Please feel free to move this to wherever you feel is necessary.

 

I've been following developments with the Hackintosh community for a while now, all the way back to the days of 10.5 Leopard.  I've configured a handful of Hackintoshes myself over the years, and recently, I built a computer that's running macOS High Sierra for video editing purposes.  However, I'm starting to think someone high up at Apple is doing their best to slow down the progress of Hackintoshes with the release of macOS Mojave.

 

It's important to note that Apple has always officially been against Hackintoshes since the Apple Intel transition.  All the way back to the very first version of OS X, the Apple EULA stated that Mac OS X was only licensed to run on Apple-labeled hardware, and you aren't even allowed to enable others to do so under those terms.  And in the early days of Tiger Hackintoshes, Apple frequently released updates that, whether intentional or not, broke the ability of the Intel version of OS X to run on PC hardware.

 

But in more recent years, Apple has been more tolerant of Hackintosh users.  When Apple unveiled their Kext signing protocol, they went out of their way to make sure that unsigned, Hackintosh-only kexts like FakeSMC were whitelisted out-of-the-box.  Most people speculate that while this use of the macOS is still unlicensed, Apple recognizes that the majority of Hackintosh users are their own customers; some even speculating that it's like free research and development on the OS.  Plus, killing Hackintoshes would be bad PR for Apple.  But I'm starting to wonder if things are changing as of recently.

 

First, there are the NVIDIA web drivers (or the lack of them) for macOS Mojave.  As of yesterday, MacRumors reported that NVIDIA went on the record saying that it's up to Apple to approve NVIDIA's own web drivers.  Some NVIDIA fanboys are speculating there's more to the story than NVIDIA is letting on, but for all intents and purposes, let's give NVIDIA the benefit of the doubt.  Outside of a few old Mac Pros that allowed customers to upgrade to a third-party video card (all of which are presumably out of their original warranty), the only other people who need NVIDIA drivers are Hackintosh users who rely on them for accelerated graphics support.  Mac graphics cards are either integrated Intel or dedicated AMD, and all work out-of-the-box.  So, in theory, a Hackintosh user could still build a machine that matches Apple's graphics cards in their Macs, but all other users are stuck without third-party driver support.  If Apple won't approve of NVIDIA's web drivers for Mojave, Hackintosh users will either have to stick to High Sierra or avoid Hackintoshing altogether and buy a real Mac.

 

Also, in terms of AMD kernel development, the only way to run macOS on PC hardware with an AMD CPU is with a patched kernel.  Previously, it took a few days to around a week or so for Apple to release the source code for the XNU kernel.  Sierra was released on September 20, 2016, and the source code for XNU was released on or around October 1st.  High Sierra was released on September 25, 2017, and the source code for XNU was released on or around September 27th (a mere 2 days after High Sierra was released!).  However, Mojave was released on September 24th, 2018.  It's now well over a month since it's release, and Apple has yet to release the source code of its own OPEN SOURCE kernel.  Without this source code, it will be next to near impossible to patch the kernel to support AMD CPUs.  Of course, real Macs don't need to have a patched kernel for CPU support, as all Intel processors within real Macs are supported out-of-the-box.  Is Apple going to close the source code for the latest version of XNU in an attempt to break Hackintoshing on AMD hardware?  Or are they deliberately delaying it in an attempt to delay development of the patched kernel?  Again, this doesn't completely break Hackintoshing as anyone with a supported Intel CPU can run OS X out-of-the-box, even on PC hardware.

 

Finally, there's been a rumor going around that Apple is going to abandon Intel sometime around 2019 or 2020 in favor of developing their own ARM CPUs for their Mac lineup.  I certainly hope that this rumor will be debunked, not just because of the Hackintosh community, but because of what this might mean for professional applications.  It's well known that historically, Macs are generally regarded as better than PCs for professional multimedia use.  I remain skeptical that an ARM processor and compatible graphics card could live up to the performance of an x86 processor and compatible graphics card in terms of apps like Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, any app in the Adobe CC suite, etc.  Also, apps like VMWare Fusion will have to go back to emulating the x86 platform if they want to run Windows on a Mac, and you can kiss Bootcamp goodbye.

 

If I had any say in Apple, I would advise them that if they were unsatisfied with Intel for any reason, instead of switching over to their own CPUs, to try switching to AMD CPUs for Macs.  The Hackintosh community already has a lot of experience in this, so it's essentially free R+D plus it would help streamline development of AMD support.  You already have a working relationship with AMD for their ATI graphics cards in Macs, so it wouldn't be too hard to open up a dialog about switching to AMD processors.  Historically, AMD has been regarded as superior to Intel in the PC community, and to top it all of, you wouldn't have to abandon the x86 platform.  Bootcamp would still work, professional applications would still have better performance than any ARM architecture could design, and you don't have to stay behind with Intel.  It's a win-win.

 

But I digress.  If Apple does, in fact, transition away from Intel and x86 into the world of ARM and their own CPUs, then Apple is going to break the Hackintosh community completely.  Want to run macOS on PC hardware?  Good luck.  You'd have to develop an emulator.  And you know how slow development was over at PearPC, and to this day, whether PearPC, QEMU, or VMWare, there is no virtual or emulated graphics card that supports QE/CI.  If accelerated graphics are a requirement for your macOS experience, then you are just going to have to buckle down and buy a real Mac.  Regardless of my ramblings, if this rumor is true, Apple is already on the stage to break Hackintoshes entirely within the next few years, so what's to stop them from doing so now?

 

In the end, I just hope that Apple doesn't deliberately plot against the Hackintosh community this way or any other way.  Not only would this be bad PR for Apple, but it would be another thing to add to the list of Apple's anti-consumer moves they've made this year.  For instance, Linus Tech Tips was denied being able to even PAY Apple for their broken iMac Pro just because they opened it, which in and of itself revealed that even Apple authorized repair shops are being required to keep Apple's own repair policies confidential or risk being stripped of their Apple certification.  Let me know of your thoughts on this subject.

[mnfesq]

Very well-written but nothing new here.

[PippoX0]

If Apple will switch to ARM, we will switch too...
T2 security ?? We will find a solution ... FakeT2

sent from my iPhone

[Mad Audi Scientist]

On 11/2/2018 at 5:46 PM, Hervé said:

But do come again in a couple of years.

 

Ha, ya in a "couple of years" indeed. 

[vandroiy2012]

On 11/3/2018 at 1:24 PM, PippoX0 said:

If Apple will switch to ARM, we will switch too...
T2 security ?? We will find a solution ... FakeT2

 

And you are an optimist. Well, you are welcome to fake T2 chip... With audio support, SSD controller, HEVC encode/decode...

[Badruzeus]

FakeT2 or VirtualT2 LoL? Waiting for Linus comment about this.

[surfinchina]

I remember back in the day when they moved from RISC to CISC chip. I think the last RISC they used was 68040?

Anyway, after they moved it pretty well signalled the end of ARMs desktop computer chips and all manner of other computers stagnated - like Atari, Commodore, Acorn and I guess a few others.

It'd be a MASSIVE undertaking to now develop a RISC chip to rival the i7 or i9 intel and to put it into production, just for Apple. Apples reasons for making the change originally still stand (mainly hitching a ride on the continued development of CISC, low price (comparatively speaking) because of high volume and compatibility of the various 'support' chips).

So I'll believe it when I see it. For now I think it's just some Apple guy taking a trip down memory lane...

[Envying]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/apple-walks-ars-through-the-ipad-pros-a12x-system-on-a-chip/

 

Here is an article from Ars.  I think it's their intention to transition or join forces of macOS and iOS in the near future.  They have done a great job on the hardware side to make iOS device stand out in architectures.  the concept of Computer to be transitioned into a new era is still to come.  Relatively software migration will be much easier once hardware idea becomes clearer. (my 2 cents)

Edited November 8, 2018 by Envying

[XLR]

[STLVNUB]

Hackintosh community has probably thrown a LOT of business Apples way so it is absurd to think that Apple is plotting against us.

If anything, they have made it easier with each subsequent release.

I'm into my 11th Year Hackintoshing and Mojave is by far the easiest to get and keep going.

Plotting, yeah right....Only time will tell...

[Vyzantion]

Perhaps they do what Microsoft did when adding NX bit as a requirement for x86_32 installations and a SSE 3 requirement next year for x86_64. Like Apple added the SSE 4.1 requirement for Sierra. Like Microsoft asked for high ram for the time for running Vista. They want to force a global hardware upgrade standard and get rid of old hardware. Hardware producing needs to keep going. In the latest years, we have not seen to much innovation regarding hardware in the x86 world. x86_128 is still experimental, not yet still close to overtake x86_64 as fast as x86_64 took over x86_32. The hardware evolution in the latest years was more of a quantity issue, not a quality issue. Many previous architectures have fallen, like PowerPC or ITAnium, because they could not evolve. x86 may have the same fate in the not so distant future.

[Badruzeus]

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.. yeah.

[Allan]

Sad....

[iWin32]

On 1/23/2019 at 4:52 PM, Badruzeus said:

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.. yeah.

Is that your video?  If not, could you link me to the user of the original uploader (or even the video in question)?

[firefly_can_fly]

I guess no. Problem is that as usual online guides provide you with basic "tap,tap,tap" install that would work as trash (if will), eventually providing user with bad experience. Apple wants to make huge comeback and thing like that a little bid bad for them. 

Stop thinking about the quick death of hack. WE are free testers for them, and they need it. 

Edited February 22, 2019 by firefly_can_fly

[Guest millusions]

i just can't see how apple is against hackintoshes.

icloud works,

caching server works,

imsgs works

 

all those services communicate with remote systems,

it's a no brainer, they could lock that down in an instant.

 

the only thing we need to worry about is Apple profits dropping, because that's the only thing that would make Apple lock us out

[vatoesse]

my friends in mexico think has a problems when no t2 macs get their visa revoked