Apple should license OS X to certain PC vendors

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coolie_d

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Don't want to start a flame fest, and don't necessarily want to make a Hackintosh thread, but I was sitting here typing this on an Aspire One running 10.5.6 and had a hell of an idea pop into my head. It's a well known fact that Apple restricts OS X to Mac hardware only due to the loss of hardware sales and myriad of support nightmares sales of OS X to the PC marketplace would cause.

However, there are certain market segments Apple seems hesitant to penetrate, i.e. the small netbook market (the MB Air is NOT that compact, its just thin). And OS X is about 99% ready to run on these 945-based machines. So why not license OS X to netbook vendors running a specific hardware platform and tie it to the serial number in the BIOS to ensure it wouldn't easily install on other PCs (i.e. the OEM Aspire One version of OS X's install disc would refuse to boot on a non-Aspire One machine)

This would enable Apple to make money selling an OS to a market they have no interest in entering, and would keep the hardware on a level playing field. Aspire One is an Aspire One, it's not like you can pop a new videocard and motherboard in there and make it suddenly incompatible.
 
Because they would see a big drop in their own hardware sales if you could get a computer with the same specs as ones that they sell for half or less than half of the price.
 
darkhorse said:
Because they would see a big drop in their own hardware sales if you could get a computer with the same specs as ones that they sell for half or less than half of the price.
Click to expand...

Only problem with this statement is that the Aspire One's specs are nowhere near the specs of ANY Apple product. It's a single-core Intel Atom on a 945 chipset. Even the lowest of the low-end Mac Minis smokes it performance wise. They won't see a drop in sales of a product they don't sell to begin with; all they'd do is make a bit of extra money on their OS.
 
Also, you may be able to get similar specs in another 13.1" laptop (DDR3 or 9400m though?) but unless it's a Lenovo it will NOT be built as well.
 
Imagine how different things might be today had Apple done this 20 years ago...
 
coolie_d said:
Only problem with this statement is that the Aspire One's specs are nowhere near the specs of ANY Apple product. It's a single-core Intel Atom on a 945 chipset. Even the lowest of the low-end Mac Minis smokes it performance wise. They won't see a drop in sales of a product they don't sell to begin with; all they'd do is make a bit of extra money on their OS.
Click to expand...

so they should only license it to aspire for that one laptop?

there are thousands of other models out there. a lot of which directly compete with Macs hardware-wise.

It won't happen. I'm glad it won't happen. If they did it would become exactly like windows: driver problems, bloatware from the factory, etc. no thank you.

I like that apple controls their hardware/software combo. I can do my own OS customization TYVM Dell....
 
Why is no one understanding the main point of this whole thread? I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT LAPTOPS.....

i'm talking about 8.9" NETBOOKS based on the INTEL 945/Atom chipset...... A MARKET APPLE IS IGNORING..........
 
apple doesn't want to go into the low end netbook market (they dont *want* to... but i do believe they will go in with their own hardware eventually...)

so no, at this point in time they dont WANT OS X machines running on such cheap and slow hardware... and when netbooks get fast enough and widespread enough, they will go in themselves... plain and simple...
 
Mr. Wolf said:
Imagine how different things might be today had Apple done this 20 years ago...
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I think you mean 15 years ago when they actually did do this and nearly died.

It's a bad marketing idea for Apple and caused nothing but nightmares for them in the past - I don't see them doing it again under any circumstances.
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
apple doesn't want to go into the low end netbook market (they dont *want* to... but i do believe they will go in with their own hardware eventually...)

so no, at this point in time they dont WANT OS X machines running on such cheap and slow hardware... and when netbooks get fast enough and widespread enough, they will go in themselves... plain and simple...
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You've never seen Leopard run on a netbook, have you? Slow is not exactly the term i'd use, it can even run an XP VM with respectable speed.

I wouldn't be surprised if they do enter the netbook market now that nVidia has the ION platform, though.... It seems similar to the macbook chipset. It'd probably be the only netbook machined from a solid block of aluminum with a $1,000 pricetag, too....
 
darkhorse said:
Because they would see a big drop in their own hardware sales if you could get a computer with the same specs as ones that they sell for half or less than half of the price.
Click to expand...

+2, Apple would never do that as another poster stated.. Its like they charge $200+ more just for an apple logo heh... but I really do want a mac mini.. seems like its the only affordable mac from apple.. :mad:
 
I'm not sure if Apple doesn't WANT to get into Netbooks. I think it's more like that Apple has not come out with a netbook yet. I seem to remember that Steve said "We will keep a close eye on the market" or something like that. I'm not sure I'd abandon all hope for an Apple netbook yet.
 
It has nothing to do with losing hardware sales, it has to do with the fact that Apple can not and will not be able to support the nearly infinite variety of hardware and software floating around out there if they even attempted to do such a thing. Their knowledge base for tech support would literally swell to 10,000x the current size to be able to handle the sheer number of issues that would spring up.

They theoretically could release an edition of OSX that says on the box "ok, go buy this CPU, this mobo, this RAM, etc etc and OSX will install without issues, with support" or something to that effect.

But just putting OSX on the market for any old generic PC (and I'm the guy that released the world's first generic installation DVD for OSx86 in 2005, so believe me, I know all about this stuff, top to bottom and front to back) isn't going to happen. It would be an incredibly stupid thing for Apple...

Let's just let them continue doing the regularly stupid things like the recent iPod shuffle headphone fiasco and now the just-discovered iPod touch 2nd generation Bluetooth support coming in the 3.0 update - get your checkbooks ready folks, the functionality that's already in the iPod touch 2nd gen won't work till you pay Apple to "unlock" it... money grubbin' freaks they are, truly.
 
Joe Average, what i'm saying is Apple should license OS X to SPECIFIC netbook manufacturers for SPECIFIC netbook SKUs.... The hardware will be 100% consistent that way.
 
Never gonna happen no matter which way you slice it. The point of this thread is?
 
Mr. Wolf said:
Imagine how different things might be today had Apple done this 20 years ago...
Click to expand...

20 years ago? They were doing it 10 years ago. It almost killed the company and directly led to the return of Steve Jobs. The external licensing of Mac OS was a total disaster.

People really need to educate themselves. No one with a basic familiarity with Apple's history would suggest they should, need, could, will, or ought to license Mac OS again.

Joe Average said:
Let's just let them continue doing the regularly stupid things like the recent iPod shuffle headphone fiasco and now the just-discovered iPod touch 2nd generation Bluetooth support coming in the 3.0 update - get your checkbooks ready folks, the functionality that's already in the iPod touch 2nd gen won't work till you pay Apple to "unlock" it... money grubbin' freaks they are, truly.
Click to expand...

Two words: Sarbanes-Oxley.
 
nvidiapwnsati said:
+2, Apple would never do that as another poster stated.. Its like they charge $200+ more just for an apple logo heh... but I really do want a mac mini.. seems like its the only affordable mac from apple.. :mad:
Click to expand...
Eh, not really. Most of Apple's high-end products are significantly cheaper than the equivalent sold by anyone else. Apple's Cinema Display monitors are traditionally reasonably cheap when compared to others of the same quality (I don't know about the latest gen, though). The Mac Pro is a bargain, and basically doesn't have an equal on the market at the moment. I don't think anybody else sells Nehalem-based workstations yet, so the performance per cost of the Mac Pro is very hard to beat anywhere else, even with home-built systems. If you need a proper workstation, that is...
 
criccio said:
Never gonna happen no matter which way you slice it. The point of this thread is?
Click to expand...

The same as 90% of the threads on [H], nothing in particular; just to provoke discussion..... Last I read, there was no law against that; and discussion is generally intellectually stimulating, so............
 
Terpfen said:
People really need to educate themselves. No one with a basic familiarity with Apple's history would suggest they should, need, could, will, or ought to license Mac OS again.
Click to expand...

Yes, but last time they tried it, they were tying it to an ARCHITECHTURE, not a specific configuration. The scenario I am describing:

Apple offers several netbook vendors an opportunity to license OS X for use with specific SKUs of their product. For instance:

Acer Aspire One A150-9876
MSI Wind-2334
Asus EEE 1000H-0291

The netbook vendor would pay Apple a fee to have the hardware qualified in Apple's labs. A special OEM OS X install disc would be created tied to the BIOS string for that specific SKU. Since ALL Aspire One A150-9876s for example would have IDENTICAL hardware, compatibility would be ensured. It wouldn't create any problems whatsoever, IMHO.
 
The future of OS X comes down to the Psystar case. If Apple's practice of artificially tying their OS to generic PC hardware is found to be illegal(which it should be) then they would have no choice but to license the OS to OEMs. Everyone keeps referring to Apple's clone days but the situation is not at all comparable. Back then Apple was licensing a totally different architecture(with >10% marketshare and questionable performance compared to x86 machines). I have a very hard time believing that Apple didn't know that people will find a way to run OS X on generic x86 hardware once the switch was made, there's just no way they could be THAT oblivious to reality. The reason Mac is outpacing PC growth is the Intel switch because no other vendor can offer OS X and Windows support. Apple should license their OS to other OEMs with stipulations of limited hardware support, it's really not that complicated. Make it real clear that you would need to have certain CPU, mobo, gfx card in etc.
 
Apple is a hardware company. They just so happen to have a piece of software to run on their hardware. It's really that simple. I don't see them licensing it out to anyone but themselves. Nor do I think they should, or "have to".
 
coolie_d said:
Yes, but last time they tried it, they were tying it to an ARCHITECHTURE, not a specific configuration. The scenario I am describing:

Apple offers several netbook vendors an opportunity to license OS X for use with specific SKUs of their product. For instance:

Acer Aspire One A150-9876
MSI Wind-2334
Asus EEE 1000H-0291

The netbook vendor would pay Apple a fee to have the hardware qualified in Apple's labs. A special OEM OS X install disc would be created tied to the BIOS string for that specific SKU. Since ALL Aspire One A150-9876s for example would have IDENTICAL hardware, compatibility would be ensured. It wouldn't create any problems whatsoever, IMHO.
Click to expand...

You really need to look up the details of Apple's prior attempt to sell licenced Mac OS boxes. What you describe here as being likely to work was already tried and did not, especially the part about hardware certification. Apple had a list of certified hardware to use in Mac OS PCs. Flopped.

Want a Mac netbook? Get an iPod Touch or a MacBook Air.
 
Licensing the OS to other vendors would certainly open them up for anti-trust cases. Wouldn't it? At i would just complicate things... But really i agree to posters here, that if they do license it, their hardware sales would plummet :)
 
coolie_d said:
Don't want to start a flame fest, and don't necessarily want to make a Hackintosh thread, but I was sitting here typing this on an Aspire One running 10.5.6 and had a hell of an idea pop into my head.
Click to expand...

This is not a new idea.
 
alex2792 said:
If Apple's practice of artificially tying their OS to generic PC hardware is found to be illegal(which it should be)
Click to expand...

Why? Companies are allowed to determine in what form their products reach the marketplace. You want OS X to run on your generic homebuilt box? Write the drivers yourself.
 
I used to think that licensing OS X would be good for Apple. Know I don't think so. How is this going to sell significantly more Mac's? Okay, you could see more copies of OS X, but then you have to start an entire support operation and vendor model which I don't see being very profitable at $130 a pop for OS X.

Apple is brand unlike anything in the computing universe. Part of its allure is that many view it as a premium brand (I certainly don't). Multiple vendors dilute the brand.
 
No.

They would loose sales, big time.

Secondly.. I'm not going to lie or hide it. You can run OSX on a normal PC if you have the time/effort put in. You're not "suppose to" via Apple, but you can and it works.


There is no longer a real difference between the Mac and PC world. I'm sorry, but there just isn't anymore.
 
If apple opened up OSX to run on PC's it would not end apple hardware sales. Not at all. People would still buy apple products for the innovative and beautiful machines but also the excellent customer service.

They could sell both hardware and software. And make more money doing it.

They also don't have to support a million pieces of hardware. Hardware vendors just release the drives as they do now for windows. Apple already supports many Intel chipsets and Nvidia too. They support a large array of video cards too.
They don't have to support legacy hardware, just modern hardware moving forward.
 
AMDXPCottonFire22 said:
Secondly.. I'm not going to lie or hide it. You can run OSX on a normal PC if you have the time/effort put in. You're not "suppose to" via Apple, but you can and it works.
Click to expand...

No Kidding??? :eek: (all sarcasm aside, read my sig.... Note the OS on 3 out of 4 of my rigs.... I sort of think I might know this! - And YES, I did purchase a family 5 pack)
 
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