Microsoft sells software, Apple sells hardware with matching software. But make no mistake, they are a hardware company - OSX won't even run without a chip confirming its an authentic Mac.
The idea that they would charge for these smaller OSX updates is bizarre, and the price point has been in the "we need this for accounting" range in the past.
And according to companies like HP , they are officially a competitor. At least for them. On paper. They have yet to make any real world moves to proof they actually compete in the hardware sector. A 800 million dollar write off with the first device does not really count.
I feel the need to point out that you can run Mac OS X on pretty much any recent Intel processor and a wide range of motherboards. It is not locked to Apple hardware.
If you spend the time to research and get the parts that are supported by OS X, building a Hackintosh is breeze. I have had no problems with the one I built.
That's sort of what he's going for though- remember the old days of Linux when only certain devices were supported? When using OS X like this, you don't even have the luxury of writing in new code to support them.
It's definitely limited. But hackintoshes are a planned and strategic undertaking. You want OS X but don't want to pay the rape rates requisite of the apple brand. So you build your pc based on the hardware guide so that everything will work from the start. If you need to add more hardware, you just buy the brand that will work. There's not enough limitation to make it suck, and you're paying 700-800 bucks for a computer that the mac equivalent would run you 3 grand.
You've really got to just follow the hardware guides to the tee, and I personally recommend using their prebuilt configs. If you go on tonymac or the other hackintosh sites they will have different hardware lists that are more or less guaranteed to work, as all the components will be ones used in mac desktops and have built in support. There is definitely a huge dick around if you try and be adventurous and go off the beaten path, and you will spend hours messing with the loader configs and kexts etc.
Na. If you get the right parts(mainly gigabyte motherboards) and read TonyMacOSX, you can get a Hackintosh up as easy as a Linux install.
It's literally build the computer, put the required software on USB drive(Unibeast). Boot computer, format drive, install OSX. Run Multibeast. Voila. Keep usb drive for when you update.
When the Hackintosh movement started that was the case, sure. Nowadays it's a lot easier - tools like MultiBeast make it trivial on fully compatible hardware.
I guess you should take a look at what installing a hackintosh system entails. It starts with flashing your BIOS and it doesn't get any better afterwards.
You're either running a massively unsupported configuration (even for hackintosh standards) or just plain trolling. I'm posting this from a hackintosh I triboot with Windows and Debian. The difficulty involved reading a HCL when I built the system 3 years ago. The installation involved burning a disc and booting from it.
Nope. You burn the disk and install OSX as normal. Depending on the hardware you might need to download a few kext (Kernal Extensions AKA "drivers") Comparable to installing Linux or Windows.
When I was dabbling with Hackintoshes a few years ago, updating the OS was not supported (regardless of your hardware) and there were a couple of other limitations. Have most major issues like that been sorted out?
Which I did/do for my Macbook Pro anyway. So when I got into the Hackintosh scene, it's second nature. I typically recommend formatting when upgrading anyway. Just doesn't feel right to just upgrade. Maybe it's just left over nightmares from when I was on Windows. Only way to upgrade was to format.
And it's worth pointing out that the SMC does more than copy protection. It's also responsible for some power management functions and practically all the thermal management - which is nice because it means you get sensible fan speeds even when running a different OS that doesn't have drivers for the Mac.
Apple's attempting to set a new expectation with consumers: OS updates should be free. Users are already accustomed to it on their phones, now they'll start to expect it of their computers.
I'm willing to wager that Apple never charges for an OS update again. I'm surprised they've taken this long to make the leap. (Of course, Microsoft makes more from OEM licensing than upgrades, but it's still a blow to their value in the consumer headspace.)
No kidding. You didn't buy your laptop/desktop from Microsoft, did you? Maybe you should take up your claim for free Windows 8 with Lenovo/Dell/HP/Toshiba.
Apple and Microsoft are in almost entirely disjoint businesses, anyway. I doubt that there's much useful analogizing to be done about their current respective situations.
Not only will Apple get some good press for this (barring any major technical snafu) but they'll glean some additional community goodwill and drastically reduce the number of legacy OS X versions in the wild.
OsX is not free, you still need to buy a Mac.
As for MSFT , they are a software company,not sure what they can do about Windows price ,which will never be free.
Want free stuff? use Linux.
Any computer. Including the one you already own, and none of which are produced by the Linux Foundation.
I will give that driver support for wifi cards may make some computers more awkward than others. It's very rare these days that any common device other than a wifi card or a just this week released graphics card causes problems any more.
Well, a much smaller percentage of Windows users are on 8.0 than OS X users are on Snow Leopard or later. If Blue allowed upgrades from Windows 7 for free, that'd be a more equal comparison.
Microsoft's business model is selling a licensed OS, something which honestly is getting harder every passing day. Apple's business model is selling compelling hardware at a premium price with their own software preloaded.
Apple could (and now indeed does) give away their software for free and still make a decent living. Their software wont run on any hardware they haven't already made a profit on, so there's no significant "piracy" risk either way.
That said, Windows 8.1 was a free upgrade for everyone already on the Windows 8 bandwagon (and thus in need for some overhauls).
I knew it existed, but the claim was that Windows 8 sold poorly with the $40 promo, which I couldn't find any backing for. The only reference I could find for Win8 sales around that time said that "Upgrade sales [are] outpacing those of Windows 7 at the same point in its lifecycle": http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/window...
