Apple no longer charges for OS X, but Apple's main source of revenue is their hardware (computers, iPhone, and iPod). I remember even reading a quote where someone at Apple said they want to be mainly a hardware
company. They restrict OS X to install on Macs, so they sell their Macs
and include the OS for free. I remember when they used to sell their OS though.. Back in the day, a new major version of OS X would cost around $150 (I think), which was about on par with an OEM copy of Windows.

I think they also limits MacOS (new name :-D ) to theirs hardware because it prevent them to have to support an indefinite amount of GPUs and others hardware variation.

Modern macs rely intensively on the graphic card.

Marketing wise like you said, they are an hardware makers, so if they find an incentive for you to buy theirs hardware they wont give that advantage to others.

A lot of people would jump ship if the OS was available to others platform.

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Re: MacOS
By: Ennev to Nightfox on Thu Dec 21 2017 07:40 am

I think they also limits MacOS (new name :-D ) to theirs hardware because it prevent them to have to support an indefinite amount of GPUs and others hardware variation.

Modern macs rely intensively on the graphic card.

Marketing wise like you said, they are an hardware makers, so if they find an incentive for you to buy theirs hardware they wont give that advantage to others.

A lot of people would jump ship if the OS was available to others platform.

There is the "hackintosh" community who have been hacking OS X/MacOS to install on non-Mac PCs. It works if you follow their guides and buy compatible hardware to build a PC. I can understand Apple's strategy of not wanting to support tons of hardware, but I also wouldn't mind seeing more of an alternative in the PC OS market. There used to be more OS alternatives back in the day, when OS/2 was around and there were others coming up such as BeOS.
If Apple allowed MacOS to be installed on other PCs, I wonder how much revenue they'd lose from hardware sales and how much revenue they could get from selling MacOS by itself.

Also, the OS maker is typically not the one developing drivers for all the hardware out there. Hardware makers have the responsibility of developing the driver for their hardware. And not all drivers even need to be included with the OS - Just drivers that might be needed to install the OS on certain machines. With Windows, Microsoft has a driver certification process, and it's the responsibility of the driver developer to run Microsoft's certification tests on it, and they'll then submit their driver to Microsoft once all the required certification tests pass.

Nightfox

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There is the "hackintosh" community who have been hacking OS X/MacOS to install on non-Mac PCs. It works if you follow their guides and buy compatible hardware to build a PC. I can understand Apple's strategy of
not wanting to support tons of hardware, but I also wouldn't mind seeing more of an alternative in the PC OS market. There used to be more OS alternatives back in the day, when OS/2 was around and there were others coming up such as BeOS. If Apple allowed MacOS to be installed on other
PCs, I wonder how much revenue they'd lose from hardware sales and how much revenue they could get from selling MacOS by itself.

Actually with the way things are shaping with Apple, putting more and more resource on iOS and even marketing more and more the iPad as a computer substitute. MacOS feel more the devellopement environement to produce iOS
apps.

Maybe sooner than later they'll ditch macOS all together and then open source it to the community like its kernel Darwin already is, they already gave it to the community a few years ago. yet if you check an iphone kernel or mac you'll read something like : Darwin 17.3.0

When they'll be no money to be made with the mac platform you see it.

Might be soon, microsoft is making an serious ARM version of windows. In the past mac where based on 68K, PowerPC then intel. I'm just not sure they'll
port macos, they'll probably just leave it behind and adapting iOS even more
to act like a mac.

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Re: Re: MacOS
By: Ennev to Nightfox on Thu Dec 21 2017 04:36 pm

Maybe sooner than later they'll ditch macOS all together and then open

Do you mean "sooner OR later"? Not sure "sooner than later" makes sense. When exactly would "sooner than later" be? ;)

source it to the community like its kernel Darwin already is, they already gave it to the community a few years ago. yet if you check an iphone kernel or mac you'll read something like : Darwin 17.3.0

Long ago (1980s), Apple once tried to claim that they held a copyright on things like overlapping windows and other parts of a GUI (even after they got the rights from Xerox), and Microsoft fought them in court on that. It would be funny if Apple ended up open-sourcing their GUI after all these years. I think it would be interesting too, since Apple tends to use a lot of Objective-C. I don't think Objective-C is owned by Apple, but it seems Apple and Apple products are some of the only software products by far that use Objective-C.

Might be soon, microsoft is making an serious ARM version of windows.

I heard about Microsoft doing that. I heard it will only be for the 32-bit version of Windows 10 though, so you won't be able to run 64-bit software on it. A lot of software is still made in a 32-bit version though. I wonder what that would mean for the PC market.. Intel is a fairly well-known name, although as far as mobile devices, I don't know if many people even know who/what ARM is and that their mobile device has an ARM processor.

In
the past mac where based on 68K, PowerPC then intel. I'm just not sure they'll port macos, they'll probably just leave it behind and adapting iOS even more to act like a mac.

I hope that's not the case.. I think OS X is a fairly decent desktop OS, and there's a reason why MacOS and iOS look and behave differently - They're designed for different types of devices. MacOS does have the "Launchpad" though, which looks sort of like iOS.

Nightfox

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I hope that's not the case.. I think OS X is a fairly decent desktop OS, and there's a reason why MacOS and iOS look and behave differently -
They're designed for different types of devices. MacOS does have the "Launchpad" though, which looks sort of like iOS.

It's weird that we are talking about that, but yesterday Apple announced that they'll will make possible for develloper to publish version of theirs apps that will run both on macOS and iOS, you'll have to take into account that it will have to be both mouse driven and touch based.

I find it weird because one is intel based and the other arm. Would be stupid if they would do like back in the day with universal apps where you had in the package but intel and powerpc code bundled in the same binary.

I guess well see.

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Re: Re: MacOS
By: Ennev to Nightfox on Fri Dec 22 2017 09:35 am

It's weird that we are talking about that, but yesterday Apple announced that they'll will make possible for develloper to publish version of theirs apps that will run both on macOS and iOS, you'll have to take into account that it will have to be both mouse driven and touch based.

Interesting.. Seems like that could make an app more complicated since you'd have to support both styles of input. It might not be as complicated as it seems though - A mouse pointer could just be one touch point.

I find it weird because one is intel based and the other arm. Would be stupid if they would do like back in the day with universal apps where you had in the package but intel and powerpc code bundled in the same binary.

Yeah, I wonder how they'll end up doing that. Microsoft had a type of "universal" app starting with Windows 8 that could run on a desktop PC or ARM tablet (running the now defunct Windows RT), and I think the Windows Universal apps could be written in JavaScript, which wouldn't need different binaries for different processors.

I find it interesting that they feel the need to do this in the first place. I suppose it makes sense from a business perspective if a lot of consumers these days are using mobile devices. But when I'm working on a document, piece of code, etc., or even playing a game, I still feel most productive when I'm using a physical keyboard and mouse. I took a touch typing class when I was in 8th grade, and my typing speed just went up after that. A virtual keyboard on a mobile device just doesn't compare.

Nightfox

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I find it interesting that they feel the need to do this in the first
place. I suppose it makes sense from a business perspective if a lot of consumers these days are using mobile devices. But when I'm working on a document, piece of code, etc., or even playing a game, I still feel most productive when I'm using a physical keyboard and mouse. I took a touch typing class when I was in 8th grade, and my typing speed just went up
after that. A virtual keyboard on a mobile device just doesn't compare.

Yes the virtual keyboard should be a thing for short typing only. When I
really need to type on the go I get the iPad out i got a good keyboard for it called TYPO the key are bigger than most laptop, and it come with a case that make it piratically look like a laptop. With apps like Coda with solid code editor and perfect SSH support i'm actually able to work from this machine and with remote desktop and can do most of the rest. i really don't need a laptop prefer to have a beefier desktop and actually connect to it and my vm environment than carry the processing power with me. It's way lighter and can carry it everywhere without too much weight. For me it's a good balance.

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Re: Re: MacOS
By: Ennev to Nightfox on Sat Dec 23 2017 09:45 am

Yes the virtual keyboard should be a thing for short typing only. When I really need to type on the go I get the iPad out i got a good keyboard for it called TYPO the key are bigger than most laptop, and it come with a case that make it piratically look like a laptop. With apps like Coda with

I've seen some things like that. And I remember one of the major PC companies (Dell, HP, Asus, I don't remember) made a tablet/laptop hybrid a few years ago which snapped onto a keyboard accessory, and their slogan for it was "A tablet when you want it, a laptop when you need it." I haven't seen too many of those though..

Nightfox

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