Thoughts on OS X 10.4.4 being cracked?

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
From the front page

This is a preliminary release of my Patch Solution for the official Mac OS X on the Intel platform. Ultimately, it would allow you to run this Mac OS X release on a generic x86 computer (SSE2 required). There's still a lot of work and documentation to do, like support for SSE2-only CPUs, a proper installation procedure and a PPF patch. However, if you like to play around, this will get you started.

Your thoughts?

*edit* Let's not have a Cr4pp13 suX0r3z / P1r4+35 r00l thread either. My question pertains more towards having a version of OS X for everyone, not just for Apple owners.
 
Apple make no money on their OS, and anyone who steals it obviously won't be able to afford their horrendously overpriced systems anyway. I say let the pirates slide, they're not hurting anyone and Apple isn't losing anything.

EDIT - Whoops, realized this is the Apple forum, not the OS forum. Take my "overpriced" comment with a grain of salt please. (or delete this post)
 
LOL I was like this shit will be locked so fast...till i saw who posted it.

I say good for the pirates. Apple decides to go X86, there are things to deal with. Piracy, for one, viruses im sure will be #2. They cant just walk into it thinking they are just going to dominate. I think they will be surprised just by the time it takes to crack EACH OS they release. Apple needs to play the game.
 
I think if Apple isn't going to offer a stand alone version of OSX x86 for all x86 PCs then it's something that will be appreciated. Also if it means that Apple based apps work for it then it might even generate some money for Apple
 
I believe strongly that Apple could make huge amounts of money by selling their OS for generic PCs. However, there is a very big, very good reason for them not to. Think about the massive range of graphics cards, processors, northbridges, southbridges, sound cards, SCSI/SATA/IDE/RAID cards, NICs, USB and Firewire cards, USB drives, wireless cards, wireless USB devices, bluetooth devices, etc, that are available on a generic PC. That's an enormous number of devices, and generates a huge number of possible hardware/driver interactions.

By limiting the hardware OSX 10.4.whatever will run on, Apple 1) neatly sidestep all sorts of development and testing costs, 2) ensure that their hardware and software will "just work", 3) keep their "just works" image untarnished, and 4) preserve their margins on hardware.

I would agree that releasing OSX for generic x86 hardware would allow for significant short-term marketshare capture (and the associated revenue), but the hardware conflict and driver problems that would immediately occur would severely damage Apple's reputation.

Microsoft has something vaguely similar, with their Certification programs, but they are not enforced beyond the "Designed for Windows X" sticker.

 
Does anyone here ever picture Apple selling peripherals like iPods, specialty devices like tablet PC's, and Operating Systems? I just don't know how their X86 hardware will pan out. I am sure they will make it so it doesn't use standard video or sound cards. But if Apple can't make money selling the OS only hardware then I don't know.

I like Apple and own a PowerMac G4.
 
Mohonri said:
By limiting the hardware OSX 10.4.whatever will run on, Apple 1) neatly sidestep all sorts of development and testing costs, 2) ensure that their hardware and software will "just work", 3) keep their "just works" image untarnished, and 4) preserve their margins on hardware.

I would agree that releasing OSX for generic x86 hardware would allow for significant short-term marketshare capture (and the associated revenue), but the hardware conflict and driver problems that would immediately occur would severely damage Apple's reputation.
Click to expand...

That is a great point. Significant resources would have to be dedicated to making sure it worked across all device configurations and so on but it would be cool to see them do it.

I understand that Apple's hardware would take a serious hit if this were to happen, but trading 1% of the PC market for say 10% of the OS market might not be such a bad move?

Besides, they still have their bread and butter (iPod) ;)
 
I dunno, shrug. Where's the steve is dumb title on this thread. How depressing its missing :\. :). The abillity to run osx on a pc would be great for apple, I'm sure. Software has much less over head in its cost. If they changed their business model to sell an end user license agreement meant for non apple designated hardware, I'm sure they could charge out the ass. A full version of OSX for 499 with no upgrade option? I imagine the free upgrades would exist, but from one major release to another. I can see huge dollar signs in this aside from the massive amounts of piracy.
 
defuseme2k said:
I dunno, shrug. Where's the steve is dumb title on this thread. How depressing its missing :\. :). The abillity to run osx on a pc would be great for apple, I'm sure. Software has much less over head in its cost. If they changed their business model to sell an end user license agreement meant for non apple designated hardware, I'm sure they could charge out the ass. A full version of OSX for 499 with no upgrade option? I imagine the free upgrades would exist, but from one major release to another. I can see huge dollar signs in this aside from the massive amounts of piracy.
Click to expand...
People who buy their hardware from Apple don't get free OS upgrades, so there's no way the unwashed masses would.

-bZj
 
Steve said:
That is a great point. Significant resources would have to be dedicated to making sure it worked across all device configurations and so on but it would be cool to see them do it.

I understand that Apple's hardware would take a serious hit if this were to happen, but trading 1% of the PC market for say 10% of the OS market might not be such a bad move?

Besides, they still have their bread and butter (iPod) ;)
Click to expand...

While I love OSX one of the reasons it is great is it just works without much effort. This is because of the limited hardware it will run on. While I would love to see apple open up the market and release it for the pc I don't really see that happening yet if ever. If anything I wish they would open it up half way. You know linense it to like other notebook vendors so you could get a nice subnotebook running it or maybe limited desktop use. You know like have a supported platform setup where intel, asus, etc could have a motherboard certified to run osx or something. This would make a much more interesting setup while maintaining a smaller base for support. Personaly I would just be happy for a intel based mac mini or macbook with a 12 or 13 inch screen so I could have something small that kicked ass.

Also while Steve is saying the ipod is the bread and butter remember that they are pretty big in the mp3 market and really one much think that they can not gain but so much more market share in it. While the market is expanding you will also see more multifunction devices start to eat away at the ipod sales as far as % of market goes. Apple will go in any direction that they think will keep them above water so figure they don't want to rely on the ipod sales as the major push behind the company(not to say that will not take full advantage of it).
 
Steve said:
I understand that Apple's hardware would take a serious hit if this were to happen, but trading 1% of the PC market for say 10% of the OS market might not be such a bad move?
Click to expand...
I think you're on the right track with regards to gaining marketshare, at least in the short term. If Apple were to release OSX for generic x86, and if it played nice with a large range of hardware, I would be recommending it to all my friends and family. However, if Joe Sixpack can't get his $10 generic wireless card to work, he'll start thinking that OSX stinks, will go back to Windows, and Apple's marketshare will drop back down to its previous levels. Apple will have increased its revenue and marketshare temporarily, but now it's back to smaller marketshare, and it's reputation is ruined.

I can, however, see Apple releasing OS(whatever) for generic x86 a few years down the road, once they get through the teething stage, and the hardware support improves. At least the CPU architecture will be the same...except the same is true of Linux on x86 today, and driver support for Linux is...lacking.

 
Mohonri said:
By limiting the hardware OSX 10.4.whatever will run on, Apple 1) neatly sidestep all sorts of development and testing costs, 2) ensure that their hardware and software will "just work", 3) keep their "just works" image untarnished, and 4) preserve their margins on hardware.
Click to expand...

Many good points were made, but I'd like to take the otherside.

It strikes me that they could easilly release OSX for general release, but not support all the hardware out there. THey support what they support (maybe add a few extra popular perpherals, like SB, if they don't already support them). After that, it's up to the peripheral companies to make their H/W work with the OS.

Those who stick with apple approved H/W will "Just Work." What's more, the fact that using Apple hardware works better than everyone else, might just cause people to switch to Apple boxes to avoid the hassle, while getting to use their new favorite OS.

In the end, I think the positives outstrip the negatives, but then I think that Apple should have gone the OS route back in the mid 80's when Gates begged them to release MAC OS for x86 hardware. If they had, we'd all be complaining about the evil Apple instead of the evil microsoft.
 
I bet if Apple made OSX or whatever available as a standalone OS, and then integrated some only-for-OSX features into the next-gen iPod people would flock to their OS.
 
sac_tagg said:
I bet if Apple made OSX or whatever available as a standalone OS, and then integrated some only-for-OSX features into the next-gen iPod people would flock to their OS.
Click to expand...

more like they would flock away from ipods and into the compitetions hands
I wouldnt buy an MP3 player that forced me to use their OS,
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
more like they would flock away from ipods and into the compitetions hands
I wouldnt buy an MP3 player that forced me to use their OS,
Click to expand...
Agreed. I think proprietary stuff can have its advantages, but it can also be a nightmare. Seeing as I never jumped onto the ipod craze I may not have a say; but I would definitely not buy an entire computer system or operating system just to use some MP3 player when there are literally hundreds of alternatives.


Concerning the whole Apple selling its OS to mainstream computer systems, I would be all for it but we already have operating systems just like OSX that work for the mainstream computer users that have at least some limited support, why do we need another one. I guess some people praise that OS for whatever reasons. Apples small nitch crowd of computer users won’t be able to support a PC OSX alone, especially since they all only buy apples in the first place…additionally most people think that Apple will never get past its nitch of “cult” users anyways….maybe they are better off doing what they are doing.


There ya go=)
 
The only way OS X would survive in its current stable, trouble free state out in the wild would be for Apple to only certify certain hardware as 'OS X Approved'. Certain chipsets, certain video cards, certain processors and sound cards... etc.

Hell, just refusing to support any PC hardware older than two years at launch would relieve a lot of the potential hardware support issues.
 
If they OFFICIALLY release it for x86, i'd have it so quick. Dual boot XP for gaming and OSX for everything else... it's just too sexy!
 
Centauri said:
The only way OS X would survive in its current stable, trouble free state out in the wild would be for Apple to only certify certain hardware as 'OS X Approved'. Certain chipsets, certain video cards, certain processors and sound cards... etc.

Hell, just refusing to support any PC hardware older than two years at launch would relieve a lot of the potential hardware support issues.
Click to expand...
All you gyus that say "Certify only certain hardware"....thats what they already do. Its called an apple computer.
 
Couldn't Apple maybe a release or two down the road include a "Press F6 to include x hardware drivers" like Microsoft does with XP. It could maybe help with hardware incompatibilities becuase the companies that make the non-apple hardware could make drivers for OSX. It's just a thought but it could really help.
 
Centauri said:
No, it's not. :)
Click to expand...

YES IT IS CALLED AN APPLE COMPUTER!!! The whole purpose behind an Apple computer is that it is specifically built to run the Apple operating system (ie. OSX). If it were not specifically an Apple then it would be just like any other computer (ie. able to run Windows or Linux or other operating system (remember IBM's OS?).

I have a PC type computer and I am very happy with it. I surf the Internet, have a high-end TV tuner type video card, have a SoundBlaster audio card. As these components are highly popular and mostly designed for PCs then it is irrelevant whether Apple releases an x86 version of OSX or not. ;)

For my money the Apple !!!!!!s can KEEP their OS.
 
where do you draw the line for OSX on x86 32/64 bit machines in terms of the hardware that is supported?

nearly everyone here can appreciate being able to dig in to their box, replace and upgrade at will, right down to the core of the system- mobo&cpu. not everyone has the same idea of what makes up the ideal machine... there is consensus on some things, but as i'm sure everyone here can attest, there are a zillion different hardware combinations you can use under XP.

people like choice. i like tinkering with my pc. i like that i don't have to send it back to get it fixed, i can simply buy a replacement or upgrade for nearly any component.

this is of course the pc's achilles heel- you live on the bleeding edge - sometimes there aren't even drivers available for your new bits (mmm new bits :D ) - so stability can suffer.

for me, this is an acceptable compromise.


it seems therefore that OSX on non-mac hardware would only support a limited range of hardware entirely, and that updates would be few and far between. and you'd pay for them (of course). i can't see apple pouring the sort of resources that ms bring to bear on windows (driver support, stability) - but if they did, i think their market share could increase considerably whatever it is now (5-8% ?)

for people who don't need to upgrade their box constantly (weird concept i know :p) - this could be brilliant- OSX running solid is quite nice. not for me, but still nice. might even mean more "switches" for steve & co! - and perhaps a switch to a mac box might follow as someone mentioned earlier this thread.
 
mdameron said:
If they OFFICIALLY release it for x86, i'd have it so quick. Dual boot XP for gaming and OSX for everything else... it's just too sexy!
Click to expand...

that would be sexy
 
The best possible outcome I can see for this is maybe, just maybe we'll start to see some improved driver and software support for open source (ie Linux) os's. I think I almost prefer that OSX will never be legally free to run on any h/w you choose; keeps the hacker chic going and you'll probably end up with a more robust platform with a hell of a lot more (talented) people working on it than you would if Apple tried to 'XP-ify' their OS. I mean, it would be cool if they sold a license for OSX 'buyer beware' style with no guarantee that it would work on whatever frankenstein monster you cobbled together. That would allow a market for companies to stick a label on their box 'we have OSX'X' drivers too!' Hell, it would be refreshing for a company to let the friggin market drive it's own success for a change.
 
Lack of driver support was always my biggest beef with Linux and, since I'm not a software engineer, I eventually gave up on it (I think 1999-2004 is long enough to be constantly frustrated). Having said that, the very same issues are going to crop up when some kid decides to download a DVD-R image of "OSx86 10.4.4" and install. If his memory doesn't jive with OSX or he has some wacky hardware combo, it just isn't going to work (well).

While I'm not against PCs (and gods, do I miss gaming!), I don't currently own one (tough to drag a desktop PC across continents with you). While I appreciate Apple's efforts to maintain their "just works" reputation (and so far it does just work) I can also appreciate the intellectual curiosity of people wanting to crack it run on generic hardware. But I maintain that unless very careful attention is paid to the system it's installed on, much like Linux, most people are going to have problems with it. And that runs directly counter to everything that buying Apple hardware to run Apple OS's is all about - and I don't like that.

Most of the people who are adamant about cracking or fully open-sourcing OSX are not serious Apple users and likely never will be.

Тест по-русски
 
It's good marketing if you ask me. If apple really wanted to they would get sue happy and put a stop to this. but they dont.
 
By "hundreds it different hardware configurations" when it comes to supporting general x86, keep in mind we're not really talking about all the peripherals. The only thing important is the chipset. Everything else is cake. Its overblown.

Sadly, most chipset vendors take years to write decent drivers for windows. The only chipset vendor many people trust is intel.

CPUs, graphics cards, everything else is nothing when it comes to support. Graphics cards take a long time to optimize for performance, but stable isn't hard.

But when we're talking about "opening up" it becomes mandatory to support all the other chipset vendors, who quite honestly wouldn't know where to start.

It simply wont happen. OS X is an operating system, but buying a mac isn't buying os x. Its buying everything. It's buying a computer designed to interact with one operating system and never having to mess with hardware configurations, or drivers. Ever. Once you start tinkering, then your not the target market for os x. You just want a pretty interface which longhorn will give you.
 
Personally I really think even the move to X86 was bad in a way. Apple needs to really protect there OS, as more ppl will code viruses, etc... I want to dual boot OS 10 and XP, but I think it won't happen for some time.
 
Apple Seeks (Poetic) Justice Tuesday, 14 February 2006 Oh, Apple, how do we love thee? Let me count the ways...

We reported a few weeks ago about Apple’s hidden message to hackers within the hardware restrictions of OS X. It wasn’t much, but “Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext” was a shot across the bow of would-be hackers. (Perhaps it should have had the extension .kthnks?)

Today, maxxuss sends word that a few pieces of OS X look for a secret message in “commpage” that gets decrypted via the TPM… basically a decoder ring for geeks. It seems that Apple wasn’t just content with sending an obvious message – they wanted one that sounded pretty too.
Your karma check for today:
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind,
he'd do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don't steal Mac OS!
Really, that's way uncool.
(C) Apple Computer, Inc.
​
While this is obviously not the work of Milton or Wordsworth, you’ve got to give mad props to the Apple designers for taking the time to put their warning in verse.

In this spirit, we would like to humbly offer up our own poem to the developers of the “OS that ran great.”
Rime of the Ancient Hacker
There once was a hacker named Maxxuss
who Steve did not think was a genius.
But Steve pondered awhile,
grabbed the phone with a smile,
and said “Bill, there’s a thing to discuss…”
​
Click to expand...
http://www.osx86project.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=119&Itemid=2
 
I think they just need to get real on their low cost options. I understand that they're not quite at Dell's level when it comes to cutting costs, but there are so many things they could do to get the prices down and start releasing products that are more accessable to people without fat wallets. The mini is a good start, but it's still not enough - yesterday's hardware with no real upgrade options to speak of, its antiquated before you even bring it home. Where are the semi upgradeable celeron macs that use cheaper components but don't sacrifice upgradeability or punish the consumer for buying the cheaper model by giving them 3 year old technology? I'm not saying roll out Celeron Macs with SLI motherboards and DDR2 and cannibalize the power mac sales, but they don't have to be tiny boxes that you need a masters degree to open with the only options to upgrade being ram and hd. I think if more people could go out and buy a cheaper mac that they could upgrade at a reasonable cost, these people would grow to love Macs (I know I would) and probably end up paying the premium or at least go somewhere in the middle the next time around. I just feel my nerve dropping more than $500 on a computer that's using 3 year old hardware and then doesn't even give me an upgrade path at all. Not when I can go buy a $400 Dell and at least be able to upgrade pretty much everything but the graphics card. Obviously the cheaper mac that's upgraded isn't going to scream like the PowerMacintel that's got SLI, lots of expansion slots, etc.

If they still want to give people compelling reasons to buy the PowerMac instead of upgrading a cheaper one into a powermac, offer features on the powermac that you can only get through buying one from apple. Work something out with Intel so the top of the line apple chip has 4mb of cache, maybe a special motherboard with a really high end audio solution on the chipset, stuff like that. That way you're not just removing any compelling reason to buy a high end mac, but you're opening up options for those on the low end.
 
ok... so driver support becomes the issue.... isnt osx basicly modifyed BSD??? and BSD=linux (basicly) while i know there isnt alot of hardware support, there is some, both ATI and NV actively maintain drivers, while i know its modifyed bsd, apple also has mac versions of both brands of cards as well (maybe not the most recent gens but there still there) im shure you see where im going with this... it should'nt be to hard of a leap for hardware manufactures that are activly maintaining linux/bsd drivers to provide support for pc osx, now componys that cheat (any one that has ever tryed to get a "winmodem" to work under linux knows my pain) will have a much harder time, but maybe it will inject some real hardware back into the PC market

osx is a mature os, it has a shot

the driver support is there in a fasion, just a matter of makeing the next step, make it up to the hardware vendors to make shure there drivers work with the os or face fines (or something this leads back to the "built for windows) thing, but there are better ways of doing it)

it didnt take that long to crack it, i bet it wouldnt take that long to get support for it eather, microsoft dosent sell pc's they sell software... if you ask me.. thats where the money is

in a nut shell, jobs is an idiot... and an imbicle if he dosent at least give it a shot

thore
 
Wow, thore. No. In a nutshell Jobs brought the company back from the brink and the reason OSX and Apples "just work" has been beaten to death above, but apparently you didn't read any of those posts. And yes, Microsoft is a hardware vendor, too. Ever hear of the Xbox? And how'd that work out for them? Plenty of profit there? No. Apple is a profitable company marketing a "one-box" computing solution (not to mention iPods and iTunes Music Store, which have shot them well into the black). Sales of Apple computers are definitely improving, not declining. What happens five years from now is anyone's guess.


http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1925239,00.asp - Dvorak's article

And OSX is built on Darwin, which is itself based on FreeBSD 5.0 and the Mach 3.0 microkernel (and I am NOT getting into all that here). But BSD is not "basically Linux." BSD is UNIX all the way and, yes, there are differences. Darwin is open source and there is an OpenDarwin project that has a ready-to-install OS running on Darwin. Apple helps out this project and provides a good bit of support for developers interested in working within their open source framework. On the other hand, the "high level" stuff in OS X is usually handled by Cocoa or Carbon, which are still proprietary.

If I missed something or grossly misspoke, someone feel free to correct me - I'm not a software engineer. ;)
 
x box isnt a pc yes it uses some pc hardware and if you really wanted to you could put an OS on it but thats not the point , i was talking strictly on the pc level if im not mistaken MS even tryed there hand at branded pc's, that worked out poorly , i know what jobs has done for the compony, and i know there not hurting for money due to i-tunes/i-pod, wasnt really the issue at hand, while XP is nice (hell ill go so far as to say its great), but so many are hungry for so much more (and yet so much less, like they say... it just works)

and you even proved part of my point, the support is there (and i knew it was based on darwin i have darwin setup as my dual boot right now, more just playing with it, but still ) i made a mistake in saying that BSD is linux when it is unix... but... linux is based on unix... so still... its a strech, again... not the point

release it for pc, support it, profit

thore
 
I don't lean on either side of the fence on this. Sure, it's great to expose more people to OS X and perhaps that will bring more sales to Apple. But on the other hand, I guarantee that "maxxus" and 95% of the people that will end up using this will not have a legal copy of OS X. That last 5% will be folks that already have a Mac.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top