Apple VP says Mac OS X won\'t run on other PCs
AppleInsider StaffForthcoming versions of Mac OS X will not run on Intel-based machines sold by other PC manufactures, according to a high-level Apple executive.
Answering questions for reporters following Steve Jobs' keynote presentation at the World Wide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple vice president Phil Schiller said the company does not plan to let users run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware.
"We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.
On the other hand, Schiller said Apple won't intentionally stop users from trying to run Microsoft's Windows operating system on the forthcoming Intel-based Macs, although there will be no official support from Apple on that front.
"That doesn't preclude someone from running [Windows] on a Mac. They probably will," he said.
Apple's recently announced transition to Intel initially sparked concerns over how the company could remain profitable if its Mac OS X operating system could be run on competitors' hardware products.
Despite its growing array of digital lifestyle and productivity software applications, Apple is still strongly considered a hardware-driven company that generates the majority of its revenues from computer hardware-related sales.
However, Macs often fetch a higher average selling price than most PC brands. Given the option, most consumers would likely purchase competitive hardware at cheaper prices if they were afforded the opportunity to run Mac OS X on those systems.
It's believed that Apple will likely add a specialized chip to the motherboard of its Intel-based systems that the Mac OS X must first detect prior to booting. Either that or the company will contract a proprietary motherboard chipset from Intel that will perform a similar function.
Andrew Orr
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
104 Comments
give it 6 weeks after the first consumer intel mac ships and the hack will be done
Hack? It's called VirtualPC. Microsoft owns and makes it. I predict VirtualPC for Mac Intel will ship the same day as the first Intel based Mac, no hackery involved.
Microsoft sells OS and app software. VPC allows them to sell a Windows licence, the VPC license, and whatever MS written Windows software users (legally) run. From that angle, this is a big win for MS, as they won't need(?) to jump through as many hoops to provide Wintel PC emulation on the Mac. They better just hope Windows under VPC doesn't turn out to be faster than Windows running on a native PC.
- Jasen.
Um,
I think a_greer is saying give it 6 weeks and you will be able to run OS X on your crappy dell or homebuilt PC.
I disagree. I think there will be a custom mobo with custom chipset(s). An emulator? perhaps but remember the apple legal dogs? I am sure that they have the lawsuit written already and are just waiting to fill in the blank where the name goes.
Good to have this stated more clearly by Apple. A lot of people misunderstood that.
One of the main blocks to putting OS X on a non-Apple box will be that it wasn't designed for that, and will need some--probably LOTS--of hacking and tinkering. Some will get it to work--on a limited set of hardware--and instructions for that will be available no doubt, with a small but active community of pirates wasting their time keeping it going.
But OS X on generic PCs won't be simple, it won't be universal, it won't be supported, it won't meet the stated reqs for most Mac SOFTWARE (so that too will be unsupported), it won't be advertised or sold, it won't be a reviewed product, it won't be possible on every machine, and it won't be legal... and therefore it won't be for the average computer shopper, that's for sure.
Apple selling OS X to any old PC out there sounds good at first... poor Microsoft! But don't forget massive ongoing cost to develop and debug OS X and all their apps from the lowest to the highest so they run on the full chaotic array of unpredictable Wintel hardware. Don't forget massive support costs to deal with those products after the sale. Don't forget how much more complex--and thus less reliable and harder to improve--parts of OS X would have to become. Don't forget that Apple would lose the ability to design the OS and apps and hardware as an integrated system. And don't forget that Apple would be asking all their developers to face those same complexity and support issues.
Not happening any time soon. But the POTENTIAL of it does give Apple some leverage of Microsoft that it never had before. I wouldn't worry about MS killing off Mac office...
I'm running OpenDarwin 8.0.1 (corresponds to Tiger) just fine on my Xeon machine here -- full hardware support and everything. From the looks of the drivers on the CD, the new Apple macs are going to be bog-standard ICH6-based machines (there's an i915 graphics driver, and it doesn't really work on non-ICH systems). They have drivers for AC97 sound, ACPI power management, etc.
Because OpenDarwin exists, I imagine they will have a very hard time locking down the OS. They simply can't keep it from booting -- it already does. The only thing I could imagine them doing is making Aqua only run in the presence of a hardware key of some kind, but the presence of this chip could presumably be faked fairly easily with an obligingly created kext.
I strongly suspect that Apple will merely not *support* OS X on non-Apple hardware, since it has a pretty good chance of not running anyway -- the kernel was built to only run on Pentium 4s (it requires SSE2, so it *might* work on some Athlons), only really boots on ICH4 and newer Intel chipsets, has support for only three kinds of graphics card, supports exactly one family of audio chipset, etc. Aside from my machine (where it works perfectly) I've been very hard-pressed to find another where it will even boot.
Another possibility is that they're using EFI instead of PC-BIOS (which I'm sure Intel would love...). Does anyone know anything about this?