If Apple offered a version of OS X for ANY PC would you buy it?
 

Title says it all. Lets say the retail price was $200.

My views aside I'm just curious what other folks think.

For $200? In the presence of free alternatives, no, probably not. Linux runs great like it is on my desktop. I don't have any complaints about my OSX laptop, but I'm not going to spend $200 to install a matching OS on a perfectly operable desktop.

Now a slightly different situation: if the choice was paying for Windows or paying for OSX, I'd drop the cash for OSX with no hesitation.

Nope.

$200 definitely not. $100... very interested. Although, I might be more inclined to buy a real Intel Apple and dual boot with windows XP on it.

Well; that's just it - This is the choice between Apple and Windows on the same hardware. That's my point so in that light you can say it is the choice between XP and OS X. I used $200 because I think that's the in between price of XP Home and Pro but I honestly haven't checked - I just know what I've paid in the past.

I've had zero OS issues since Win2K and XP. No reason to change.

I want both. IIRC, Steve Jobs implied that they wouldn't limit what you could install an Intel Apple PC. Since Apple is rumored to use standard Intel motherboards with a small chip identifying it as an Apple motherboard, it should be possible to install Windows XP on a second drive or partition.

Absolutely; they have said that would be possible but here's the thing. I don't want an Apple computer. They cost too much - I can build my own thank you. I upgrade too often (at least in the past) to be buying a new Apple every 6 months or whatever.

I want to run it on my hardware. Most of their hardware is from the PC world anyway (Video cards, HArd Drives, USB support, etc).

I don't need an Apple branded computer - I just want the OS and I'm willing to pay for it the same way I paid for Windows XP. Of course I want to dual boot - I just want to stay "in control" of my own hardware destiny.

I'd buy a copy. It might take some research to be able to put together a hardware package as reliable and as well-supported by OSX, but it would be worth it.

well, since I haven't ever bought an OS... MS hasn't gotten much of my money over the years. I'd love to tinker with OSX, but I can't imagine that I'd want to change permanently. If XP was as bad as Win95 or 98 maybe, but XP runs really well for me. If I was going to switch I'd probably be more likely to go Linux, but even that isn't as seemless and easy as XP.

I used to be a Wordperfect die hard, I used to tinker with alternative OS's all of the time, but these days it's really hard not to just stick with MS products (Except IE but even that is necessary sometimes)

I'd probably buy it to give it a go. Mostly because I'm in "give it a go" OS mode right now - I just installed Linux (ubuntu) at home as a dual boot to XP (its great for everything but gaming and those pesky websites which don't work properly in Firefox - I problem I have with XP anyway).

I've also spent waaaay too much time fiddling with themes, object dock and Konfabulator in XP to give a degree of OS-X look/feel/functionality (?) to XP. See the screenshot below (clicky for bigger - Pelican won't let me do full size) :D

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1124404455.jpg

I would, to put it on some PC hardware where Apple doesn't make anything equivalent. For example, my new IBM X40 laptop is a little gem of a machine, but in 24 hours I've already had two freeze-ups and three re-boots. I'd like this with OS X.

But you won't be able to, not legally anyway. Apple will not sell OS X for x86 shrink-wrapped. It will only come on Apple hardware. If you're willing to buy an illegal copy, and then hack your way around the hardware lock, you might be able to do it.

I've got an X41 and feel the same way - though I have had no issues.

I've been a linux/UNIX user for years and frankly, linux sucks as a Desktop OS. The support just isn't out there.

Apple as I see is the only viable alternative in the windows world. They have the power to free us from a monopoly and make a ton of cash doing it.

I wish they would - for my sake.

without the checks with the CPU etc ...
try playing a song, and it saying you can't play it cuz you don't have a lisence.
I will be fiddling around with the OSx86 , but as far as a permanent replacement ... NO

OSX does run faster on an Intel chip :D

****
EDIT: As far as $200 for the OS .. won't be possible.
It checks to see if the hardware is Apple, even though it's an Intel board and Intel chip.
So, you are still required to buy from APPLE and only APPLE. The OS comes with the hardware and APPLE won't sell hardware for $200 .
No self building of machines.


They are and will be hacks that will bypass the check for the protection chip.... time will tell.

till then, I will use my XP layered with everything Mac.
***

Yes.

I miss the sheer power of my old P4 with 1gb of Rambus. I don't miss XP suddenly crapping out after 4 years on one install. OS X gives me 90% of the ability to tweak things as you can in Windows.

The bad: Expanding Apple's market share is only going to make OS X a target for hackers. I have no doubt that there's a hole somewhere in OS X...nothing's perfect. Whether or not Apple can repel these attacks remains to be seen. Sad, really.

I've gotten two brand new top-of-the-line PCs in the past few months - the IBM X40 and a IBM T42p. Both were fresh installs of Win XP Pro. Such great hardware. Such a lousy OS.

I kid you not, almost every single day I've had at least a problem of Outlook or some other app or a part of the OS freezing up, and rebooting every few days has become routine. Okay, maybe the corporate IT dept loads the machine down with too much crap running in the background, and maybe I use the machines too intensively with too many apps open at once and all kinds of synchronizing and networking going on. But I'm still so unimpressed.

My Mac runs like a top, and I can't remember the last time I rebooted it.

I do wish Apple would make a real super-light sub-note. Their smallest notebook, the 12" PowerBook, has a small footprint but is surprisingly heavy. My X40 weighs far less with considerably better battery life. I also think Tablets will become more popular - I had one for a year, and it was almost right - and I hope Apple offers one eventually.

I have had ZERO problems with my P4 and XP
I run all the high end stuff Office 2003, Adobe Creative suite 1 & 2. Autocad, Solidworks, plus a plethora of others.

I also run ALL the Stardock Object Desktop applications that makes my XP box look and feel like a Mac. This also puts aditional strain on the system, but no problems.

I get ZERO crashes with XP

People are applauding this Mac using Intel hardware, but you still have to buy the hardware from Apple, so the $3000 Mac will still be there,.

They sell hardware. Very few units, but it pays cuz they rape you
Windows sells software, bagillions of copies, zillions pirated, but they still make a killing.

Having an OS that will run on a Intel platform and can be installed on any intel type setup will DESTROY Apple. They don't want your $200-$300 for software, they want the $2000-$3000. Thats what has been keeping them afloat and the people that want a " Social " and " Artsy " computer get suckered into it.


/rant

And the engineers like me who like a system that doesn't BSOD on a regular basis (every XP or Win2K box I have access to or ever owned does).

I suspect your crashless PC is in the minority.

I guess the title didn't say it all. I know their plans are not to allow the os on any PC hardware and only Apple hardware. This was a "what if" scenario where they DID allow it on any hardware and sold it for around the same pricepoint that Microsoft did.

so, .... what if Apple sold a complete system
(hardware&Software) for $200...
anyone in their right mind would buy it ....

I'm the lone vote for Apple hardware.

With Apple hardware and an Apple OS you are significantly less likely to encounter instability related to hardware variances.

It's one of the reasons that Macs used to be pricier than they are today. Every chip on the board was proprietary which also caused a lot of the supply and manufacturing issues that used to plague Apple.

Now they have a happy balance, consistency in architecture and no more supply issues.

My general perspective is that I have only bought one name brand computer and it was a rip off. I got less and paid more; never done it since and I likely never will again.

I also have had very very few instability problems in building my own PCs and even fewer using W2k and WXP; I would almost say I've never had a BSOD in XP but it isn't true. I had a driver instability with a RAID card recently (that was unsupported so duh!) and every time I tried to go into the disk manager it would BSOD violently. :D

I'm very happy with XP; But I would love a dual boot system so that I could do the Video happy things I struggle with in Windows that are much easier in the MAC world. I had an iBook through work recently but it was just tooooooo slow - it seemed that the hard drive though sizeable was performing at what I would expect a 4800rpm drive to perform at. We bought some IBMs after that and I haven't looked back. Now I run Linux in a VMWARe machine to do my UNIX business on my laptop (I would run it natively but the wireless support for my particular IBM is rough so it's just easier in VM).

I can't see spending the money on a Mac, just can't see it. I'm an economical kind of guy (Read "CHEAP") and I can't justify the money on their hardware but I can easily justify the money on their OS. I think there are likely a lot of people out there like me and if Apple did this while they might loose some hardware sales they would gain in leaps and bounds in the desktop software sales department. Not just their OS but all the software they sell.

I haven't had any problem (that I remember) on either the home PC I'm typing this on or my work Compaq laptop (now 2yo), other than the laptop's harddrive giving up after 6 months (not Microsoft's fault!).

Using Outlook/Word/Excel/Firefox, I have no instability at all. I think the last abnormal behaviour I had was with GIMP2 (free image manipulation program) crashing, but again, no problem with XP continuing to run just fine.

Oh yeah, and friggin' Acrobat Reader locks up a fair amount inside of Firefox (and inside Explorer before that). Ctrl-Alt-Del and stopping the process fixes it though.

Not enough RAM or a really slow CPU can really spoil the party though, especially if you're impatient.

Adobe Acrobat sucks, it's a worse resource hog than most MS software, takes forever to load, and often doesn't "unload".

Other than the occasional app problem my XP is extremely stable.

MS could build/be a rock solid platform like Apple, Sun/Solaris, etc.... if the hardware that it worked with was rigidly limited regulated. If Solaris or OSX worked with any $10 taiwan made generic video card, NIC, sound card, etc.... they'd be less stable than they are now.

I've been using XP for years, usually on several computers at a time, usually on at least one computer that barely supports the apps that I run it on, including Outlook, the rest of Office, Photoshop, games, loads of other apps big, little, free, etc..., and in that time I bet I've had less than 5 blue screens. My home PC is on 24x7. Actually I take that back. I tried installing the software for an Ipod that I bought for my daughter. I got blue screens for 24 hours. I then restored the system to the config that it had before the Ipod software and it's been fine since.

It wasn't actually the BSODs that drove me from MS. It was the "I forgot about your network, would you mind reminding me how I'm supposed to talk to the outside?" And the "Gosh, I know you put files over here, but I can't read any of them anymore." Or my favorite, "Yes, I know that device worked yesterday, but today it doesn't. Perhaps if you re-installed the drivers? Again? And again? Differently this time?"

I'll grant that XP didn't usually crash or die on me, but the random stupidity that the OS threw at me just did me in.