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They Want It, We Got It (9/20/00)
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Speaking of that Intel version of Mac OS X, while personally we think we're likelier to see a Best Actor Oscar for Carrot Top than Apple's next-generation operating system running on a Pentium anytime this decade, it's nice to know that at least some people really want what we've got. Or what we're going to get. Whatever.
Faithful viewer Ben Stanfield clued us in to the "OS X on Intel" site, which is currently amassing support from those who would like to see Mac OS X shipping for the multitude of PC clones out there in the wild. "It's a beautiful OS," the site chirps, "with all the power of a BSD environment... let's face it, Windows works [try telling that to this NT server, whose bluescreen count is well into the double digits over the past three days... -ed.], but it's got some serious shortcomings." The site is currently collecting "signatures" for its petition, and when last we checked, over 2200 people had signed on.
However, no matter how many people clamor for X on Intel iron, we're betting the request will fall on deaf ears. Steve likes to talk about how Apple's user experience is unparalleled because the company makes "the whole widget"-- the hardware and the software working together to produce a consistent and pleasant user environment. Do you really think he'd change his mind on that and force Apple to try to support the nightmare myriad of hardware configurations floating around in the Wintel world? Not bloody likely-- especially since, for the trouble, all the company would get in return is plummeting Mac sales, as customers buy el-cheapo PC clones to run Mac OS X.
There's only one way that we can see Apple releasing Mac OS X for Intel, and that's if Apple itself bails on the PowerPC and starts sticking Pentiums in new Macs. (It's a scary thought, we know, but it's just a hypothetical.) Even in that unlikely event, since Apple makes such a huge proportion of its money from hardware sales, we'd be willing to bet that Intel-based Macs would retain a hardware ROM so that non-Apple Intel boxes still couldn't run the operating system. Still, it's nice to see that the Wintel crowd is lusting after the future of the Mac, isn't it? It makes us feel special.
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SceneLink (2561)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 9/20/00 episode: September 20, 2000: Put on your driving gloves, because FireWire is coming to a car near you. Meanwhile, a French site stumbles over a mysterious reference to DOS in the Mac OS X public beta, and some PC users are looking at Apple's new operating system with lust in their eyes...
Other scenes from that episode: 2559: Hot Rod? Burning Rubber? (9/20/00) Let's get one thing clear right off the bat; we here at AtAT aren't really "car people." We don't gush over the latest models, we don't change our own oil, and we consider the AtATmobile little more than a utilitarian device for transporting bodies and belongings from point A to point B-- a particularly lovable utilitarian device, but a utilitarian device nonetheless... 2560: You Got Your DOS In My X (9/20/00) There's no doubt that Microsoft has a few hundred thousand dirty little secrets, and one of the more benign ones is the way that DOS still lurks beneath the surface of Windows. (Okay, it's a stretch to call DOS "benign," but we're grading on a curve, here-- at least there are no dead bodies involved.)...
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