Why MacOS X Will Never Happen on PCs

[FooFooRabbit]

This is something many people have been wondering. Is Apple ever going to release MacOS X for PC?

The answer is NO! Not a chance on earth.

The reasons behind this are so simple that not many people understand it.

Even though Apple has managed to run MacOS X on PCs, they will never release it for this simple reason:

Almost everyone is going to buy the cheaper PCs instead of buying the more expensive Macs to run MacOS X.

Apple makes profits with hardware sales, not software sales. I'm not saying that the software sales isn't going to give them any profit though. They will make lots of profit. But the PowerPC platform as we know it would dissapear. Apple would become a software company only.

And that, my friends, will never happen (not in the next 10 years at least). As much as you hope or think it will, it won't. Only when Apple has reached a 80% market will the chance of MacOS X on PC ever occur. And by that time, MacOS 20 will be out.

[Rrabu]

God point. The only way I could see it being released for PCs would be for a good price. i.e. High enough to make it more worthwhile to get a Mac with OSX than to buy a cheap PC and get PC-OSX (for lots of $$$).

[Mark J Hershenson]

Who stoked this can of worms???

Apple has no worries if it releases MacOS X on PCs. Know why? Something called Windows. You might have heard of it.

The market share for MacOS X/x86 would be far less than that of OPENSTEP. IN fact, I'd wager it would basically be non-existant.

The only piece of MacOS X on PCs (as you call it) that most want to see released is the Cocoa component. Many developers went ahead with Cocoa development when they were told by Apple that they could run on Macs and Windows. This has since fallen through it would appear, and is a horrible tradgedy.

But I ask this of you: If you're actually serious about MacOS X on Intel hardware, what do you think is ACTUALLY gonna be supported? The IOKit isn't even out, so you can't develop drivers for it. The ones you'll get with the package would be outdated, unoptimized and you wouldn't like them. You'd have a small subset of all hardware on the market supported.

So, what is the big attraction of deploying an untailored operating system on your Intel box when you can go out and spend $600 (which is of course child's play money for the true PC entusiast) and buy a nice iMac and run MacOS X natively on PowerPC, where it's being optimized to run?

-- mjh

[FooFooRabbit]

Well, of course, if MacOS X for PC was that under-developped, Apple wouldn't even release it at all. So you're whole little explanation makes no sense whatsoever.

[Mark J Hershenson]

How so?

The point is, whoever it is that is ACTUALLY wondering if Apple will release OS X for the PC must understand that they don't understand what they're really asking.

Could Apple release it? Sure.

Will they? No.

And if they did, would you like it? Likely not!

-- mjh

[FooFooRabbit]

Now that you put it that way...I agree.

Apple *could* release it. But there would be no point.

Yes, in this case, I agree.

[Keda]

I am not a programmer, but as I understand it, the Darwin source code can(in theory) be compiled to run on a PC.

How plausible is it this? If Darwin could be made to run on Intel, would the rest of the OS be able to follow.

I agree that Apple would not be acting in its best interest to release such a product. Look at what happened with clones and you can see why.

[FooFooRabbit]

Yes, Darwin can easily be ported to PC. Cocoa would also follow. But Classic and Carbon API's would have to stay behind I believe. The GUI? I believe so.

There's wouldn't be much point though...if carbon and classic didn't follow. There would be so little cocoa applications in the first few years since most companies will carbonize their products first that releasing MacOS X for PC would be absolutely pointless.

That, BTW, is another reason why Apple would not release MacOS X for PC.

[Mark J Hershenson]

Sure you can run Darwin. As I hear it, it's a nice, if buggy, BSD clone.

However Cocoa isn't going over to Darwin currently. It may, but it's not now. Cocoa requires, mainly, access to a graphical system, and Darwin doesn't have one right now.

Classic will never leave the Mac.

Carbon could with some work, but it won't. Ever, I bet.

mjh

[RockLord]

A Mac OS on wintel box??
Geez, why would ya want to put a superior Os on a inferior piece of hardware? Are you that desperate to save, what, $50? While contemplating this also consider that you do get what you pay for.

[no one]

Originally posted by RockLord:
A Mac OS on wintel box??
Geez, why would ya want to put a superior Os on a inferior piece of hardware? Are you that desperate to save, what, $50? While contemplating this also consider that you do get what you pay for.

What platform differences ?

iMac - USB i/o

iPaq - USB i/o

simple video controller depndancies and processor differences ?

hat hardware benefits exit bast that point may be hardware specific, ie 1394

but after that, there are n differences, and if Apple alrady has those drivers in their core Mac OS/X, then it's a small step