Mac OSx86 Legal Soon?

[King Macintosh]

Well, this ZDnet article says:

 

Are humans just naturally driven to want what they cannot have?

 

Apple may be resisting the OS licensing model that has traditionally worked so well for Microsoft and perhaps that resistance is finally paying off as Macs nibble away (albeit very very slowly and from a distant blip in Microsoft’s rear view mirror) at the market share of Windows-based PCs. Apple goes to great lengths — usually through its digital rights management technologies (what I call C.R.A.P.) — to tightly control the relationship between its software, its hardware, and, in the case of the iPhone, the relationship of both to carriers and the Internet (God forbid you should attempt to acquire new audio online for your iPhone — music, ringtones, etc — through anything but the iTunes Music Store).

 

But none of this seems to be phasing the tenacious mice (the hackers) who are managing to keep the Apple cat on its toes. Most recently, under the headline $399 Ultraportable Apple Laptop, Gizmodo has coverage of how OS X has been hacked to run on the Asus EEE PC. Based on the buzz around the Net, Hackintosh How-To author Adam Pash is already a folk hero in certain circles. But if a Hackintosh isn’t your speed, then maybe the Torrenttosh is. There’s apparently a pre-hacked version of OS X floating around on Bittorrent that takes most of the hacking out of Hackintosh. As I’ve said before, if I could have OS X running on a Lenovo Thinkpad (as a Trackpoint addict, I hate touchpads), I’d take it in a heartbeat.

 

But the best (worst?) evidence that Apple is losing the cat and mouse game with hackers is how the latest firmware update to the iPhone (1.1.2, now, finally being pushed through iTunes) is already “jailbroken.”

 

Perhaps Robert Scoble characterized Apple’s enigmatic ecosystems best when, this last Monday, he wrote:

 

Steve Jobs treats developers like {censored}. Doesn’t give them an SDK. Makes them hack the phones simply to load apps. And

they create hundreds of apps anyway

.

 

What other company has the problems that Apple has where the company is coming up with all sorts of restrictions (not just on the tech’s functionality itself, but how much of it we can buy) and even still, cult-like masses are climbing all over each other to push and even break through those limits?

 

Back to OS X, perhaps its time for Apple to reconsider its Apple-hardware-only policy and once again look into licensing OS X. Clearly, now that the switch to the Intel platform is well behind us, and given the the success that hackers are having at “porting” the OS, there are no technical barriers. And, compared to selling hardware, selling bits is like printing money. There’s no question the demand is there. And I’ll bet that, given some of the moves that have been made by desktop/notebook systems vendors like Dell in the area of Linux support, that they’d jump at the opportunity to bring OS X into the portfolio. Apple could, if it wants, roll the program out on a limited basis. For example, it could pick one or two other hardware partners (eg: Lenovo, who could give Apple huge access to the Chinese market) and work exclusively through them in a way that those vendors shoulder the lion’s share of supporting users.

 

 

 

 

 

which means, Apple is getting Dragged into licensing OS X for Windows-based PC's, i knew that guy on the Apple Discussion was right! *jumps up for joy*, so in a year or 2, all of our Hackintosh Boxes, will be legal! yes!

[articquad]

XDD

 

So, you think that apple will license their OS for anybody just because?

 

They've been running on closed hardware for about 30 years, and it's worked for them.

 

So here's a crazy idea, go buy a mac instead of waiting "a year or 2".

[King Macintosh]

XD, i already have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro, so shut up, but thats cool, i can go ALL OS X!

[apowerr]

I doubt this would actually happen. If it did OS X would become a lot like Windows in terms of stability.

[glassJAw]

If Apple does that their business model is blown and they would be not profitable.

[Konami®]

You know what, I think if Apple license OS X for the PC they will have even a big marketshare, I think they will probably be 40 to 50% market share, and more programs will be written for OS X and then Windows will face a serious menace from Apple. If Apple was more open they will have more market share and a lot more users.

[Headrush69]

Apple may be resisting the OS licensing model that has traditionally worked so well for Microsoft

The difference being that MS captured the market when there wasn't a dominant established OS.

Apple trying to do the same when there is an OS that hold 90+% of the market is an entire different ball game.

 

Maybe some day, (which is not in the near future), if Apple's OS share was much higher it might become viable that increased OS sales might ofset losses due to the lost hardware sales, increased development costs, and higher support costs, but I don't expect to see that soon or in the Steve Jobs era.

 

But the best (worst?) evidence that Apple is losing the cat and mouse game with hackers is how the latest firmware update to the iPhone (1.1.2, now, finally being pushed through iTunes) is already “jailbroken.”

I would suggest that Apple really hasn't made much of effort at all really.

 

Back to OS X, perhaps its time for Apple to reconsider its Apple-hardware-only policy and once again look into licensing OS X. Clearly, now that the switch to the Intel platform is well behind us, and given the the success that hackers are having at “porting” the OS, there are no technical barriers.

It's never been a technical issue and always has been about money and control.

 

For example, it could pick one or two other hardware partners (eg: Lenovo, who could give Apple huge access to the Chinese market) and work exclusively through them in a way that those vendors shoulder the lion’s share of supporting users.

Sure maybe on the hardware side but Apple would still be stuck with software support, which would be huge. If you are suggesting only picking a few hardware partners, how is this much different than Apple making their own machines since you are restricting it to specific models?

[Lostgame]

You know what, I think if Apple license OS X for the PC they will have even a big marketshare, I think they will probably be 40 to 50% market share, and more programs will be written for OS X and then Windows will face a serious menace from Apple. If Apple was more open they will have more market share and a lot more users.

 

No, that's what will happen if Apple prices it's hardware competitively, namely making some affordable sub-$1000 laptops.

[InorganicMatter]

Bad idea. Only computer enthusiasts upgrade their version of Windows regularly. The other 99.9% of the world uses whatever OS came on their all-in-ome $500 Wal-Mart special PC until that dies, then they buy another one and repeat the cycle. The world is not going to run out, buy, and install a new OS.What will do more good than anything for Apple is selling all-in-one PCs and Laptops in the sub-$500 range. It doesn't have to be spectacular - a Conroe-L with 512MB of RAM will run Leopard just fine.

[~pcwiz]

Didn't take the time to read the entire article but I highly highly doubt Apple will make OSx86 Legal. How could they when:

 

1) They will earn absolutely no profit from it when people just download the ISOs via torrents

2) They are losing sales of their Macs. Why buy a Mac when you can run OS X on your own ordinary PC? (sounds like a stupid question for a knowledgeable user but this is how noobs think)

[Hrgasr]

Apple might as well. Either lose money to hackers or make money by licensing it.

[xplizid]

Hackintosh is great but I think a majority of people that do it either are recently trying a different OS or couldn't afford a mac. In which case their next purchase will be a mac regardless of price and OS because the experience is much cleaner. I was considering a mac but wasnt sure if i'd like OS X and the price tag was an extra 500 dollars. Now this year I am purchasing a Mac because I really enjoy OS X and 100% working machine vs a cuple quirks that dont work and updating without waiting and will this install work on my machine bothers. I really believe that a lot of people that go the OSx86 route will eventually buy a mac especially if apple drops their hardware prices and compete with the market prices more aggressively.

[rathalos]

Lets face it, no one like's microsoft's way of selling bits for quick huge cash.... if apple degrades itself to that level, then apple would become like any windows out there... constantly plagued with malware and virus... apple plays the game well, and hence its thriving well without much scratched... micro{censored} played the game wrongly, now has to face the consequences....

 

lets face the fact, if windows wasnt bundled with ur new laptop or desktop, which of u will actually move ur ass out and buy one? u'll jus download the iso, find a serial or crack and happily use it... same will happen to os x.... people will jus download... u can now run it on any x86 machine, y bother buying apple's excellent superior hardware? i can get a dirt cheap dell and put os x inside..

 

if you consider all these factors, u'll soon realise apple is going to go out of business... and lets face another fact, apple will NEVER be able to get computer manufacturers to bundle os x inside beige boxes.. unless they degrade the price of their os down to the same degrading level at which micro{censored} has done with windows... micro{censored} is practically almost paying money to the major computer makers to put all their {censored} into the beige boxes....

 

apple is better off sticking to its current business model for now and forever... what u cant get, u'll always dream and aim for it... once u get it, u'll feel nirvana.... i love that experience...

[nano2nd]

Apple sells computers. Thats it.

 

In the late eighties, early nineties - the troubled times before the return of Jobs, Apple did in fact license it's OS to clonemakers. And it nearly put them out of business. You are essentially licensing your intellectual property to your own competitor. Look at Palm/Handspring. Same story. Bad model.

 

Apple have no desire to have the Mac OS running on the beige boxes of the world - they want to sell you a Mac.

 

And the fact that they don't have to worry about a million different components and hardware types means they can spend their time making Great Stuff instead. Whereas Microsoft spend their time hacking for the sake of compatibility. Forever.

[Dr. Hurt]

I don't think Apple will do that because that will kill their hardware sales. Also, it would take away the "I have a Mac" fantasy. It's going to become like a linux distribution and would get seriously hacked. Also, current mac users and fans would get frustrated.

[digital_me]

I won't buy a mac because they are very, very expensive in comparison with similar

hardware from other vendors. You only pay for the brand, pay for the fruit. But technically

there's no big difference. I have the closest hardware to a Mac Pro and running Leopard perfectly

and if I want to change something in my configuration, I just have to open the case.

But if you have a mac, you have to live with it as it is until you throw it to the trash.

Anyway, for me, OSX is the best product made by Apple and I'll run it licensed or not because

I like UNIX and I think OSX is the best UNIX based os around.

 

In the end I think Apple should be very grateful to the Hackintosh community for making this OS so

popular to users that in other ways never could afford a mac and never heard of it. And many

of the Hackintosh owners are developers that are now contributing to the rapidly growing OSX

application and driver base. I say that because I converted many people I know to using OSX and

I think in a short time we will see an interesting thing: "More HACK users than MAC users"

[lifi]

Well, I don't know many laptops that have the same energy effiency as Macbook (Pro). But I am just a newbie, so maybe I am also wrong...

 

Telling you the truth, I thought about buying a laptop with the most similiar specification and then install MacOS, but then I was just so convinced by the Macbook's (Pro) battery power. And which other laptop has a MagSafe connection

[FilmGirl]

Apple sells computers. Thats it.

 

In the late eighties, early nineties - the troubled times before the return of Jobs, Apple did in fact license it's OS to clonemakers. And it nearly put them out of business. You are essentially licensing your intellectual property to your own competitor. Look at Palm/Handspring. Same story. Bad model.

 

Apple have no desire to have the Mac OS running on the beige boxes of the world - they want to sell you a Mac.

 

And the fact that they don't have to worry about a million different components and hardware types means they can spend their time making Great Stuff instead. Whereas Microsoft spend their time hacking for the sake of compatibility. Forever.

 

 

While I don't think Apple will do this (and I don't think they should, because the market doesn't allow someone, even an established player, to take over the current OS market just by offering an ISO - if it did, Linux would be on a lot more desktops), you've got the cloneing/licensing argument all backwards. The Apple clones were a huge mistake, because a) they came far too late for the company to actually build momentum, they would have needed to beat out the Windows 95 launch and have more than a mail order presence - they didn't the hardware was absolute {censored} and c) the price wasn't any more reasonable. Plus, the Apple clones were far from a typical OS licensing system because they were licensing not only the software, but also the hardware specs. You still had to have the same closed-off, less upgradable specs to run OS 7 on a clone. You couldn't buy a third-party, Apple certified Motorola board/processor, case, adaptors, etc. and then buy a separate copy of the OS and install it at will -- you still had to buy the whole package. I'm not arguing that the Clones were a disaster - but that was not an example of a true licensing agreement.

 

Also, with regards to Palm and Handspring - after 3m spun Palm off into its own company, the two people that founded Palm, desgned Palm OS and were responsible for the Palm Pilot left and formed Handspring. Handspring was always fully compatible with the Palm OS and all of its applications. The hardware offered users more of a selection for handsets, and were priced more competitively -- but the Visor did not hurt the development as Palm OS as a PDA platform - on the contrary, it was responsible for helping it grow. Where Palm went wrong was by essentially not getting their OS up to speed with Windows Mobile -- and by missing that boat, they missed out. The two companies merged again, because it was the death of the OS that hurt sales -- but the Treo was a Handspring product orginally. If anything, that's an example about how licensing can benefit a market -- but it can't sustain a market if the software itself is not able to keep up with user needs and the competition.

 

But more to the original article -- I agree with many of the other comments -- Apple has very little incentive to offer a boxed copy of OS X that works on any X86 machine. One reason OS X is so stable, certainly not the only reason, but one reason, is because the hardware set is basically set -- Apple always knows exactly what options are on a system and how they will react. The OS doesn't have to deal with irregularities or inconsistncies among products. That factor is limiting to Hackintoshers - but it's what helps keep Apple's system running better. Apple doesn't have the resources to offer support for more than a set number of hardware platforms - which is one reason they don't update the line more frequently. To support more users/profiles, they would need to outsource like everybody else -- that would do more damage to the brand than help.

 

Plus, part of what makes Apple, Apple is the whole exclusivity thing. You become part of a "club" if you buy a mac -- or at least, that's the message they try to send us. In August, when I had to buy a new laptop and was deciding if I was psyched enough to go Mac all the way, I very much contemplated going all hackintosh style, on a brand new Vaio or Dell or Lenovo laptop -- but when the time came for me to spend my $1800 after tax/warranty/accessories -- I got a MacBook anyway. I have no problem admitting part of that was because I wanted to feel like a "full member" of the club -- even though I know that's ridiculous and I don't buy into much of the other Apple BS. So much of Apple's appeal is the air of exclusivity. Why do you think they keep re-designing iPods and iPhones and all that? They don't want to be too common to no longer stand out as being cool. Licensing loses their cool -- and cool is Apple's biggest unspoken selling point.

[~pcwiz]

Even if Apple licenses Mac OSx86, the majority of people are still going to download it via torrent so its not an advantage for them.

[Detosx]

This is a no brainer but at the same time I am going to violently generalise because I am very much of the mind that Apple need to release Leopard for the beige PC box and release it yesterday. Yes, Apple make the vast bulk of their money from hardware sales but their releasing a PC version of Leopard wouldn't bring that to a halt! Why would it? Apple's look gorgeous, or at least not pug ugly. Just about everyone I know has gone out and bought a boxed copy of Tiger or Leopard - and then installed the hacked version on their PCs/Laptops. Buying it gives them that clean feeling. The people who steal, in an absolute sense, usually don't have the cost of the bus fare up to the Apple store, so they're not costing Apple anything in the first place. Yes, a stupid exageration, forgive me, but the pigeonholing the other way is infinitely more absurd. In fact, in extremis, even the folks who do have the money but shaky moral ethics are a goldmine of free publicity for the Apple platform. In stability terms, which wins - running Vista on a laptop with 1gig of memory or running Tiger on the same laptop? A lot of people will say Tiger because it doesn't choke on 1gig! You have to wonder, did Microsoft and Laptop manufacturers collude together to drive people into buying a Mac laptop? I bought two very cheap laptops in the past year and both of them had me partitioning the drive and putting Linux on the second patitions, just so I could get some blinking work done without Vista going freezing up on me. Yes, you can adjust Vista's performance settings and trim and trim and uninstall and adjust service settings but... these are the very things that turn people off Windows in the first place. Even installing an additional gigabyte on one laptop didn't make a vast difference, a big difference, yes, but not a vast one. Running Leopard on my laptop is more a proof of concept thing than anything else. Along with buying Leopard I bought iwork08 and ilife08 and, yes, a Mac Mini! I long for the day I can just pop an Apple sanctioned install DVD into my PC laptop and... A friend's wife put it well. She refuses to let him buy a new computer until the old one is clapped out. He's saving for the 24" iMac but it's going to take a while under the budgetry constraints they've set and he wants to ditch Vista in favour of Tiger. Is his buying and installing Tiger going to stop him buying the 24" iMac? Of course not, the latter is gorgeous!

 

I thought when Apple made the bold move to Intel processors it was the short end of the wedge and we would see Tiger released as a rival to Windows. I think the osx86 community has shown that doing so wouldn't, in fact, involve Apple having to employ a vast number of technical support staff. The tweaks involved since Apple moved to Intel boards haven't been vast.

 

Is the problem dear old Steve? Certainly he doesn't seem like part of the answer, which is to pull the collective Apple head out of the sand before someone releases a Linux distro that leaves both Steve and Bill sputtering. Is that eighteen months down the line? I'm not sure that tomorrow isn't already here; it takes no time to install Linux and most of the programs you will ever need get installed at the same time. Updates are a doddle, only codecs tend to be a problem, initially. Firefox is the same on Linux as in Windows and OS X. Openoffice can handle just about any document format you throw at it, unlike some of its better known and paid for rivals. Just that... Linux's GUI isn't remotely close to Apples. KDE 4 four, anyone?

[fgdn17]

Well, this ZDnet article says:

 

Are humans just naturally driven to want what they cannot have?

 

Apple may be resisting the OS licensing model that has traditionally worked so well for Microsoft and perhaps that resistance is finally paying off as Macs nibble away (albeit very very slowly and from a distant blip in Microsoft’s rear view mirror) at the market share of Windows-based PCs. Apple goes to great lengths — usually through its digital rights management technologies (what I call C.R.A.P.) — to tightly control the relationship between its software, its hardware, and, in the case of the iPhone, the relationship of both to carriers and the Internet (God forbid you should attempt to acquire new audio online for your iPhone — music, ringtones, etc — through anything but the iTunes Music Store).

 

But none of this seems to be phasing the tenacious mice (the hackers) who are managing to keep the Apple cat on its toes. Most recently, under the headline $399 Ultraportable Apple Laptop, Gizmodo has coverage of how OS X has been hacked to run on the Asus EEE PC. Based on the buzz around the Net, Hackintosh How-To author Adam Pash is already a folk hero in certain circles. But if a Hackintosh isn’t your speed, then maybe the Torrenttosh is. There’s apparently a pre-hacked version of OS X floating around on Bittorrent that takes most of the hacking out of Hackintosh. As I’ve said before, if I could have OS X running on a Lenovo Thinkpad (as a Trackpoint addict, I hate touchpads), I’d take it in a heartbeat.

 

But the best (worst?) evidence that Apple is losing the cat and mouse game with hackers is how the latest firmware update to the iPhone (1.1.2, now, finally being pushed through iTunes) is already “jailbroken.”

 

Perhaps Robert Scoble characterized Apple’s enigmatic ecosystems best when, this last Monday, he wrote:

 

Steve Jobs treats developers like {censored}. Doesn’t give them an SDK. Makes them hack the phones simply to load apps. And

they create hundreds of apps anyway

.

 

What other company has the problems that Apple has where the company is coming up with all sorts of restrictions (not just on the tech’s functionality itself, but how much of it we can buy) and even still, cult-like masses are climbing all over each other to push and even break through those limits?

 

Back to OS X, perhaps its time for Apple to reconsider its Apple-hardware-only policy and once again look into licensing OS X. Clearly, now that the switch to the Intel platform is well behind us, and given the the success that hackers are having at “porting” the OS, there are no technical barriers. And, compared to selling hardware, selling bits is like printing money. There’s no question the demand is there. And I’ll bet that, given some of the moves that have been made by desktop/notebook systems vendors like Dell in the area of Linux support, that they’d jump at the opportunity to bring OS X into the portfolio. Apple could, if it wants, roll the program out on a limited basis. For example, it could pick one or two other hardware partners (eg: Lenovo, who could give Apple huge access to the Chinese market) and work exclusively through them in a way that those vendors shoulder the lion’s share of supporting users.

which means, Apple is getting Dragged into licensing OS X for Windows-based PC's, i knew that guy on the Apple Discussion was right! *jumps up for joy*, so in a year or 2, all of our Hackintosh Boxes, will be legal! yes!

 

 

WHY??? Just buy a MAC, run Leopard/Vista/WXP/Linux....all on the same x86 machine.....so you pay a little more, but

with bootcamp you can run windoze if you need too, or linux..and who knows whatelse????

[sarahbau]

...if I want to change something in my configuration, I just have to open the case.

But if you have a mac, you have to live with it as it is until you throw it to the trash.

 

That's just complete BS. I have never understood why people think this is even remotely true. It never has been the case, even with PPC hardware, and it certainly isn't the case now. The same components are replaceable in a Mac as a PC. The only component in a Mac Pro that you can't replace is the logic board. The iMac is only slightly worse off in that you can't replace the video card, but in both computers, you can change RAM, hard drive, CPU, etc without any hacking, which has pretty much always been the case.

[Cdnalsi]

Just buy a Mac and you'll be done with this whole OSx86 {censored}.