(no subject)
Since OS X Leopard seems to be all over the place, it has me thinking enough to make a pointless computer post.
I know that OS X will let you install windows and run it on the Mac hardware. I'm not entirely sure if it's running native or if it involves any emulation, but I'm fairly certain that the underlying hardware is close enough to a PC. It's a neat feature, but I'm not sure how many people are going to buy Mac hardware intending to run Windows on it often. I'd be more interested in the other direction: running OS X on PC hardware. Ever since they gave up on their old hardware and moved to a more PC like Intel architecture I've wondered how tough it would be to do that. And I gather that the main reason you can't just do it is because they don't want you to. They'd rather keep everything under their umbrella. I understand they can keep quality high by keeping their hands on everything, but it just seems like if people could buy a dell and had a choice between Windows and OS X, Apple would gain tons of market share. All those people out there buying iPods would recognize the Apple name and their rep for designing good interfaces.
It used to be that software was the deal breaker since some things only ran on Windows. While this is still the case to some degree, I'd say that 90% or more of what people do is web based now. Give them a web browser, and nothing else matters, they'll do what they need to do there. And if they can't, well, that's when they either pick an OS or just dual boot. It may be beyond the average user to want to do that, but they probably aren't the people running software that requires a specific OS.
I'm not sure what Apple's intent is. It seems like selling their software for use on any system would be a great deal for them. Selling software certainly seems like an easy way to grow fast as opposed to selling hardware. You can sell tons of software with minimal costs. They'd have to have additional support and all that, but it doesn't seem to be a deal breaker. But part of me thinks that Apple is happy being a niche market. Windows is the evil majority and Mac is the cool alternative, and that's just how they like it.
It seems like the best situation from my perspective would be to break up Apple hardware from Apple software. You could still buy a Mac in that configuration, but you could also just buy their hardware or their software. It seems like both would benefit at least some from having that choice. Someone out there wants the run OS X on their home built PC and there's probably someone that wants the pretty Mac hardware but really needs to run Windows. Maybe neither would be the majority market, but getting more hardware and software out there always helps theirs position.
So anyways, if they sold OS X that I could install on my Dell, I'd buy it. I'd play around with it, probably prefer it to Vista. Maybe I'd even like it so much that I'd use it primarily. Next step might be buying their hardware. It seems like a good idea. Half the point of having Macs so prevalent in education was to get people liking them early right? And the same with iPods, they aren't just an Apple promotional tool, but they do a good job of it. The problem is that once they've baited you your only option is to go all in. You buy their hardware and their software in a package deal. Why not let the people who fall in love with the iPod hardware but can't switch to OS X for software reasons buy some of your hardware? Or let the people that love the iPod/iTunes software but already have plenty of computers buy a nice new OS X.
And if Apple ever does decide to do that, remind me to buy a bunch of their stock beforehand.
I know that OS X will let you install windows and run it on the Mac hardware. I'm not entirely sure if it's running native or if it involves any emulation, but I'm fairly certain that the underlying hardware is close enough to a PC. It's a neat feature, but I'm not sure how many people are going to buy Mac hardware intending to run Windows on it often. I'd be more interested in the other direction: running OS X on PC hardware. Ever since they gave up on their old hardware and moved to a more PC like Intel architecture I've wondered how tough it would be to do that. And I gather that the main reason you can't just do it is because they don't want you to. They'd rather keep everything under their umbrella. I understand they can keep quality high by keeping their hands on everything, but it just seems like if people could buy a dell and had a choice between Windows and OS X, Apple would gain tons of market share. All those people out there buying iPods would recognize the Apple name and their rep for designing good interfaces.
It used to be that software was the deal breaker since some things only ran on Windows. While this is still the case to some degree, I'd say that 90% or more of what people do is web based now. Give them a web browser, and nothing else matters, they'll do what they need to do there. And if they can't, well, that's when they either pick an OS or just dual boot. It may be beyond the average user to want to do that, but they probably aren't the people running software that requires a specific OS.
I'm not sure what Apple's intent is. It seems like selling their software for use on any system would be a great deal for them. Selling software certainly seems like an easy way to grow fast as opposed to selling hardware. You can sell tons of software with minimal costs. They'd have to have additional support and all that, but it doesn't seem to be a deal breaker. But part of me thinks that Apple is happy being a niche market. Windows is the evil majority and Mac is the cool alternative, and that's just how they like it.
It seems like the best situation from my perspective would be to break up Apple hardware from Apple software. You could still buy a Mac in that configuration, but you could also just buy their hardware or their software. It seems like both would benefit at least some from having that choice. Someone out there wants the run OS X on their home built PC and there's probably someone that wants the pretty Mac hardware but really needs to run Windows. Maybe neither would be the majority market, but getting more hardware and software out there always helps theirs position.
So anyways, if they sold OS X that I could install on my Dell, I'd buy it. I'd play around with it, probably prefer it to Vista. Maybe I'd even like it so much that I'd use it primarily. Next step might be buying their hardware. It seems like a good idea. Half the point of having Macs so prevalent in education was to get people liking them early right? And the same with iPods, they aren't just an Apple promotional tool, but they do a good job of it. The problem is that once they've baited you your only option is to go all in. You buy their hardware and their software in a package deal. Why not let the people who fall in love with the iPod hardware but can't switch to OS X for software reasons buy some of your hardware? Or let the people that love the iPod/iTunes software but already have plenty of computers buy a nice new OS X.
And if Apple ever does decide to do that, remind me to buy a bunch of their stock beforehand.