We all knew this was coming when Apple announced they were switching to Intel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4880022.stm

Not sure how I feel about this, I can see the commercial sense in it as most people are put off Macs because of the lack of Windows.

 

Apple will sell a shedload more Intel Macs because now reluctant switchers have no excuse and a safety net.

It's great news for me since I was going to have to keep a PC once I got my iMac just to run 1 or 2 things that only run on Windows. Now I won't have to and it's going to save me a bundle.

Michael.

 

Macs and PCs use a totaly different BIOS so the bootstrap will be completly different. However I am sure some genius may be able to tweak the BIOS so that it can work with PCs.

I would imagine it would not be that stable though and you have all the issues of drivers etc.

 

Would be great if someone could mod it to use with a PC BIOS. I'd reckon OS X would run like a dream on my A64 3000 with 2GB of RAM. Most Windows stuff that I needed to use, I could run under Virtual PC and then just boot natively into Windows for the odd game.

 

There are no decent graphics card drivers around at the moment for those wanting to run XP on a mac. I was reading a report today where a G4 mini beat a new Intel mac when running XP and 3d games.

 

Rob, I think BootCamp fixes that driver concern...

 

Apple used to provide a intel compile of OSX when it first came out as it was BSD (a unix clone) based they had no problems.

It would be "easy" to take a copy of BSD and put the apple interface on it if apple releases the code again to the community.

I am guessing they went BSD (Ok all the others are clones of this really ) in part as they would not be legally required to release the code.

 

BSD is much slower-paced than Linux (which is very closely related). Linux can be quite unstable with new and untested code, whereas BSD is stable and steady.

And yes, you can run BSD with an OSX-alike window manager and a lot of people won't know the difference.

 

I would imagine that is highly ilegal though, well certainly the software will be. I have seen OSX themes for XP as well

Oh and yes I am probably the only person here to constantly managed to crash an Emac

 

IMO it would make sense for apple to make OSX run on PC's. I am much more interested in that possibility than Macs running windows.

 

Leave that to the hackers, they are nearly there.

 

It is not up to Apple to make it work with the PC, it is up to the BIOS vendors. However there will be a huge issue with drivers.

It will be a pain like trying to get some obscure distro of Linux working.

 

Well Apple would be rather dumb IMO if they miss the chance to produce an OS version that will run on a bog standard x86 PC. They're hardly challenging the PC market with the MAC if we're all being brutally honest, but I'm sure they would have more success with their OS as a stand alone package in competition with Windows. Linux has had quite a bit of success if you consider just how much of a non starter it is for the non techies. So give joe public a true viable alternative to Windows and I think M$ would be in for a bit of a shock.


GTM

 

I agree and Apple are the only company which can give MS a shock in the domestic market.

It is quite ironic that MS originaly provided the software for Apple though

 

Personally I think they’d be incredibly dumb if they did allow OS X to run on any old PC. Apple have now very cleverly placed themselves at the top end of the personal computer market. Now that Macs can dual boot XP means that Macs can do everything PCs can, but the reverse is not true. In other words in OS X they have a unique selling point (stable, secure, supported, application compatible UNIX) and now just enough conformity / familiarity to attract the more conservative Windows users across. This may shortly get better still as Leopard (OS X 10.5.x) is rumoured to have the ability to run Windows apps natively under OS X without the need to dual boot etc. If Apple play their cards right they could snatch the high end of the personal computer market leaving the PC as simply being something you buy if you can’t afford a Mac. They are not far off that at the moment to be honest.

Tony.

 

I would tend to agree with Tony's analysis. Apple make their money from hardware (Mac) sales. Allowing XP to run on Macs can only improve those sales (IMO dramatically). OTOH allowing OS X to run on any old PC could really damage Mac sales.

Even if they did allow it the only way they'd make serious money from OS X sales is if they got into agreements with major PC makers (Dell etc) to pre-install OS X because, lets face it, most people aren't going to buy it on their own. It would take a vary brave PC manufacturer to pre-install OS X on their machines and the restrictive contracts they have with Microsoft would make it very difficult for them to do so anyway (and still ship Windows PCs too).

Allowing OS X to run on PCs would be the beginning of the end for Apple.

Michael.

 

Agree with Tony and Michael, besides if OSX were to run on PCs, it wouldn't be long before OSX might get the same sort of unreliable reputation as MS products simply because instead of running on well built and known to be compatable kit, it'll be running of the shonky rubbish that passes for most PC hardware these days.