Sitting for my 12th straight hour in a hospital waiting for the wife to download the latest tricycle motor, my mind started to wander and the solution to Psystar’s counter suit just occurred to me: Give Away Mac OS X.
This isn’t an argument for any open-source / open-license nonsense, just that Apple ought to effectively “shelve” Mac OS X as a product folks paid for, and make Mac OS X upgrades akin to firmware updates, completely proprietary to the machine.
By offering customers free upgrades to Mac OS X (presumably your initial copy came free with your purchase of an Apple computer), Apple would completely eliminate the “consumer harm” predicate of the anti-trust suit as one can’t be a “consumer” of a product you didn’t buy.
The revenue hit would be trivial as Mac OS X isn’t a profit center for the company, and the increase in customer loyalty and positive experience would likely offset any losses. Also as an additional carrot for Windows switchers it might prove to be an irresistible temptation. I can see the ads now:
Get the world’s best operating system with free upgrades for life with the purchase of an Apple computer.
That’s all for now, back to labor and delivery”¦
22 responses to “The Solution to Apple’s “Little Psystar” Problem?”
Might I throw something else out there? TOO LATE :P
I’m pro choice on OS’s. That’s right! I like each of them for different things, and I’m not ashamed to admit it to the world!
The one OS I can’t use legally on my current systems is OSX… and it sadens me.
I love it. I looks great, has some killer apps I’d love to get into, and the interface is pure art… so why is it the only way I can have it (without obliterating my already overused wallet for new h/w), is via the buggy WindowBlinds on XP, or via Mac4Lin on my Ubuntu system?
I get that forcing the hardware perhaps makes for better sales… but what if everyone could own the OS and run it on everything? You can run everything on the Apple hardware, so why not the other huh?!?!?!?
Perhaps Apple hardware users could get the equivelant of the Vista Ultimate Extras or something as a thankyou for the extra Apple spend? Surely theres a way.
Bad, bad idea. Apple’s major advantage is that “It just works.” This is what’s driving market share to Apple away from MS – and this is simply because Apple has complete control over its hardware and software products. Give this control away by relinquishing control and Vista-scale problems is where we’d end up in short order.
This would kill Apple’s brand.
Chances of the OS being opened as you suggest? Nil. Of course. Thank goodness.
Leigh you know I was just joshing you on the spelling thing right? The other day I spelled Russian as Russion!!!
BTW, I need to contact you or anyone from Cult of Mac ASAP on something important – can you please email me at either
dizzle at worldofapple dot com
or
idrankthekoolaid at mac dot com
Seriously, it is important.
@ Leigh. i concur.
@ splntr. you can load it yourself. apple won’t go after you. you are too small plus you are doing it as a hobbiest etc. its when you start selling it, and making money on their product, then you are liable. that is the difference between pystar and you. if pystar just made machines that are tested to work with osx, and a pdf manual of how to get it on (and maybe other OS’s) i doubt apple would have a case. but since pystar is installing it and selling it as a finished problem. then its not cool.
and it aint cool. i mean, if i took my time, effort, skill, education (in which i am still paying off my student loan) and made a hit song. that doesn’t mean someone else can remix it and sell it as their own. at least, not without my consent. BUT if you remixed it just for yourself, and your road trips, no probs, that is cool. i could technically tell you to stop, but i am not an asshole. thats why apple never stopped the original osx-hack thing. but making a business outta it is not cool.
sorry if a rambled. just got back from the doc’s for my sick daughter and i am getting ready to hit work up.
“OS-X”? Does that run on those computers made by MAC that I’ve heard so much about? MAC makes I-PODS too, right?
“The one OS I can’t use legally on my current systems is OSX… and it sadens me.”
Here’s the thing. Since the iMac debuted ten years ago, there have been about a dozen revisions, and only four of those major ones. This makes for a couple of dozen different hardware configurations. This is a small amount of hardware to support.
Now, look at all similarly-priced PCs in the last ten years. We’re not talking dozens, hundreds or even thousands. We’re talking tens of thousands of different hardware configurations from thousands of different manufacturers, not including store-brands and home-builts.
Why (in this price bracket alone) would Apple chose to move from supporting a small handful of machines, to a plethora? What’s the incentive?
Would the OS get better in the eyes of the public? Not likely. That much hardware support leads easily to bloatware and bugs.
Would Apple sell as many machines? Not likely, when one can buy a $300 bargain-basement laptop and stick OSX on it.
Would Apple make money? Not likely, as they’d need to hire more support staff, more programmers, do more damage control, have a larger collection of reference machines, have to work out bulk deals with 3rd party manufacturers. All to sell more $129 products, while loosing massive numbers on their $500-$10,000 products. On top of which, Mac OS X would likely become one of the most pirated pieces of software on the net if it could run on any machine. It’s easy to pirate software. No where near as easy to “pirate” hardware. Even as it is, OSX86 is unstable, and nearly unusable for anyone who dares try installing it. Why? Because of *hardware* issues.
Mac machines are more secure, less buggy and a better overall experience because Apple keeps a tight lock on both the hardware and the software. Take one or the other out of the equations and someone’s gonna be screaming “Jenga!”.
All Apple would do is shoot themselves in the foot by making OSX platform agnostic.
@Corpmac: uh… didja read the article? Nobody suggested that anyone “open” anything. In fact our suggest was to make OS X even more “closed” by not even selling it anymore.
Interesting, but remember what Lord Jobs said about those free phones you get from the telcoms? “That’s what they’re worth.”
Good luck with the tricycle motor, and precongratulations.
@ peruchito: Good call. I did try the OSXx86 deal at some stage a couple of years ago, and I’m huge fan of open source etc… but I guess maybe now I’m finally out of my poor student days, i’m finding it satisfying that i now legit-own *most* of the software I use now. I guess I feel like I’m flipping the bird at the OSX dev’s by “stealing” it.
@ corpmac/zang etc: I get ya. You’re right… bigger market means higher support cost etc… but isn’t a bigger market share something mac “fanboys” have been salivating for?
I have a similar “issue” with much of the Linux community. Too many fanatics, and those that have developed some serious superiority complex issues… it tends to put a lot of people off much the same way a soap box preacher might.
Ideally, for someone such as myself, we’d all just get along. My firewall will be nix, my play box would be Vista, and my photography tool would be OSX… and all of it run on machines I like, at a price I like… *sigh* my utopia… :D
Maybe this is the “Product transition” which was mentioned at the latest Quarters conference call.
John