AppleWatchers: Mainstreaming the Hackintosh?

November 13, 2009 6:54 AM

AppleWatchers: Mainstreaming the Hackintosh?

What does the hive mind know about Apple's history, culture, marketing, business models, people, etc. which would confirm or refute the hypothesis "Apple will fully embrace the use of Apple OS and applications on non-Apple hardware in the next 3 - 5 years"?

posted by ZenMasterThis to computers & internet (14 comments total)

I have no evidence, but I also get that same feeling from Apple's silence/complacency on hackintoshing when it would have been quite easy for them to stop it, or at least make it much harder.

Also, I can't help but think that every month since the iPod launch in 2001, it's seemed that Mac hardware has made up less and less of Apple's revenue, even as the market share grows in both percentage and gross sales. The iPhone and App Store explosions just underscore that.

But again, I have no evidence or data here. Just a similar impression.
posted by rokusan at 6:58 AM on November 13

Apple hates clones and always has. The one time they tried to embrace clones, it nearly killed them.

Apple will never embrace clones. It dilutes the brand.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:01 AM on November 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

"What does the hive mind know about Apple... which would confirm or refute the hypothesis..."

Historical: Pretty much the first thing Steve Jobs did when he regained control of the company was stop allowing the (previous) OS to run on non-Apple hardware. That, among other things, helped stop the bleeding and allowed the company to come back from a fairly precarious position.

Business model: Apple has shown consistently that they want profit share, not market share. The company is about making money, not moving units. They're not really a participant in the operating system market in a traditional sense. The OS is just one component of their actual product -- the Macintosh -- which is profitable. They're making money. If they want to make a larger amount of money, they will sell more Macintoshes. Letting someone else sell kinda-sorta Macintoshes doesn't really make them very much money.

Technology: One of the strengths of OSX is that it only has to run on a pretty narrow range of hardware, and support a pretty small array of devices. Changing that has a huge cost in pure dollar terms as well complexity and as risks to quality.

Etc.: People like to think of Apple as being in some kind of competition with Microsoft, because, oo! those guys have Windows and these guys don't! But the fact of the matter is that the big chunk of Microsoft's Windows business -- selling licenses to OEM vendors and F500 corporations -- is one Apple isn't participating in. They aren't even competitors. It would cost a lot of money to enter that market, for disproportionately little return. It doesn't make any damned business sense.

They're making a lot of money doing things the way they're doing them. Why throw that away? Apple is better off building on their strengths and looking for new ones than weakening themselves in hopes that some dumbass idea that keeps coming up in the misinformed tech punditry -- turning into the OS maker for a gaggle of crap-ass commodity hardware vendors -- will work out.

"since... 2001, it's seemed that Mac hardware has made up less and less of Apple's revenue"

While I think there's a non-zero risk that a post-Jobs Apple would turn into "Apple, Your iPod Company!" I don't at all think that horizon is 3-5 years away. I think this is more a reflection of the incredible boost to the bottom line that the iPod has been, rather than an indication of the insignificance of the Mac.
posted by majick at 7:16 AM on November 13 [6 favorites has favorites]

"Apple will fully embrace the use of Apple OS and applications on non-Apple hardware in the next 3 - 5 years"

Read this: While Rivals Jockey For Market Share, Apple Bathes In Profits and you may understand why it doesn't make much sense for Apple to do that. They're making money hand over fist, selling products that people worship and that other companies can't really compete with.

There is zero fucking reason for Apple to change that. ZERO. There isn't much that putting Mac OS X on non-apple hardware would do for Apple and its growing billions in the bank with no debt. It would make everyone else happy, but it wouldn't make Apple richer and that's the bottom line.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:27 AM on November 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

If Apple were turning a blind eye towards hackintoshing, they wouldn't have explicitly disabled Atom support in the latest release of Snow Leopard (10.6.2) and they wouldn't have sued Psystar. I agree with everything majick said, and I'll add this: the core of OS X, Darwin, is open source—not because Apple was feeling generous, but because it is built on existing open-source software. This makes it more difficult for Apple to completely lock it down.
posted by adamrice at 7:31 AM on November 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Agree with everyone re: Apple won't become an OS company... except we don't know what will happen once SJ is gone. And sadly, SJ's departure, one way or another, is inevitable, and I hate, hate, hate to say it, but probably sooner rather than later. Yes, it takes a team to be Apple, not just SJ, but there is nobody at Apple - or elsewhere right now - who has both the vision/dedication/abilities and the personal authority to push this kind of extraordinary innovation forward. Inevitably this means Apple will dilute its focus, and all kinds of foolish things are then possible. Including trying to become an OS company - perhaps not very likely, but distinctly possible.
posted by VikingSword at 7:45 AM on November 13

Hackentoshing is, and always will be, a niche issue. The exclusive domain of hobbyists and geeks. There really is no market competition to Apple from hackentoshing until the hackentoshers go commercial (i.e. Psystar.) Then, Apple is compelled to protect their rights and acts.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:22 AM on November 13

Apple, at least under Steve Jobs, has always seen itself as a hardware company. Steve has never liked non-Apple machines running Mac software. In fact, when he returned to the company, one of his first acts was to cancel the licenses some companies had to make Mac clones.
posted by inturnaround at 8:32 AM on November 13

They're a business, motivated by profit. They will allow cloning when it makes financial sense to do so. Given that the current model is making oodles of cash, a change in 3-5 years is unlikely.
posted by chairface at 8:33 AM on November 13

"But Apple's fundamentally a software company, and there's not a lot of us left and Microsoft's one of them." -- Steve Jobs, NYT, January 2007

Apple designs and creates iPod and iTunes, Mac laptop and desktop computers, the OS X operating system, and the revolutionary iPhone. -- Apple's official positioning statement as of today.

Note the order of items and the weight given to Mac hardware in that last one.

Steve's not dumb. He knows that computer box-selling days are numbered.
posted by rokusan at 8:41 AM on November 13

Personal anecdote: I develop a small, free application that fills a pretty esoteric need (and has about 30-40 regular users). It works great on Linux and Windows, and I've gotten a few requests for a Mac port. Obviously I'm not going to buy a Mac just to develop my little hobby project, nor could I afford one as a poor graduate student. But I'm putting together a cheap PC desktop, and I'm planning to put OS X on it specifically for that reason.

My willingness to pay for a Mac is exactly zero, so Apple loses nothing. But they gain one tiny improvement in the number of apps available for their users. And who knows? If I like OS X enough, I might buy a Mac when I'm out of school.
posted by miyabo at 9:53 AM on November 13

Mac hardware has a good profit margin. Other OEMs can sell similar windows based systems for 20% less. I really doubt they are willing to throw that away. Heck, they havent even taken baby steps to allow OSX to run on anything. Businesses have been asking for a legal way to virtualize OSX, yet Apple wont play ball. If they arent even letting us virtualize it, then its a long road to buying a clone Mac.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:06 PM on November 13

Heck, they havent even taken baby steps to allow OSX to run on anything.

Not the same thing, but Macs now come with a CD of Windows drivers. I never thought I'd see that day, and yet here we are.

From the other side: I don't think Apple should really get into the business of trying to support hardware made by others, and I suspect they'd rather avoid that particular sinkhole.
posted by rokusan at 1:12 PM on November 13

I can't answer your question but let's tell you m experience. I have been using, abusing, hacking and slashing computers for about 30 years. In the past 15 or so, my distaste for windows has grown to epic proportions. I have been using Linux almost exclusively for the past 10years. I have had to keep a windows partition available to use my many iPods in their fullest capacity. Now I know there are Linux ways of using iPods, but nothing is as great as using iTunes natively. I have never touched a mac. Just never. I hate windows and Linux is fantastic for absolutely everything it has always met my needs with a little support and tweaking macs were just too expensive to be justified.

I have had my hands on a hackintosh Dell mini 10v for three days now and I can absolutely guarantee that my next computer purchase will be a trueblooded mac product. I love it so much. Now I am older than my most intensive hacking days, I have less time (kids) and more income (steady job), so this purchas can be made with a different set of rules and expectations, a mac is as much an investment in reliability as anything else. Apple does not need to support hackintosh nor kill it. They can see it as advertising to those that might not otherwise buy. A gateway drug (or Dell drug ;) sorry) I love the 'tosh and don't have time for the hack'. I am also going to be telling all my friends that they should switch too. They might not listen cause I've been telling them to switch to Linux for years.

Mac doesn't have to open their os to anyone. They have a product that people want. They are making money. I just don't see it happening
posted by swimbikerun at 3:33 PM on November 14