Apple Drops OS X

After a few years of using OS X I see that Apple was smart enough to take an open source OS and stick their awesome front end on it…. (UNIX users will feel at home in Darwin, the robust BSD environment that underlies Mac OS X. That environment is accessible at any time from the Terminal) after a couple years of using both windows and OS X I realize that the genius of OS X is the simple interface, along with the safety and stability of the core, but lets face it, Apple has always stated that they were a hardware company.

Apple hardware is pretty much second to none, they put a ton of resources into developing their hardware and it makes no sense to reinvent the wheel by spending perfectly good man hours on an operating system. Apples first step was their switch over to Intel processors; a needed step for about a year or two before they did due to the PPC processor being stagnant for a few years. A little stumbling point was put in place to stop the masses from loading Windows XP on Apples great hardware, I say small stepping stone because they used a different style of firmware instead of the old standard BIOS, this system was developed by Intel for other projects. It took hackers about three days to hack the Intel version of OS X to run on some pretty standard hardware such as basic Dell boxes.

Apples next step was to release their version of the hack that people were running to allow Windows XP to load and run side by side with OSX on Apple hardware this is known as “Boot Camp”, they sure released this quickly, Boot Camp has all the drivers for things like video, sound, and other peripherals. Looking the timeline that this was released and ready for the real world leads most to believe that it wasn’t a reaction to people hacking or requesting this functionality but a part of a master plan to phase out OS X. I’m sure that Jobs and Crew looked at what happened to ipod sales as soon as they released iTunes for Windows, they opened up their market to sell ipods to the other 95% of the computer users, lets face it selling ipods to only 5% of computer users wasn’t going to make them as much money and that’s what Apple is in business for. Apple Zealots believe that the company exists to make their computer experience “Different” than the norm, and they don’t want Apple to become too successful because then they wouldn’t feel special. So take that same philosophy used to sell millions more iPods and apply it to their laptops and desktops, that would mean selling their hardware with Windows installed, Microsoft already stated that they would gladly license Windows to Apple. This would now allow the other 95% of computer users to buy computers from Apple. They have developed some really cool applications that originally came with OS X, and later in life turned into something you purchased called iLife, stick with me a minute… these applications were recently rewritten to run on the x86 Intel platform, so I’m saying its not to big of leap to make them run on windows, so take that $79 that they sell iLife for and now sell it to the other 95%, wow some serious cash for the company and they can keep the Apple zealots happy by letting them run all the iLife applications after OS X is phased out. I know that right now all the apple people are groaning and saying no way, but the same people said Apple would never switch to Intel, they did… they said that windows would never be on apple computers, it is… Bootcamp has been highly popular, well the only people downloading it are apple users, as a matter of fact OS X’s next generation (Leopard) will have Bootcamp built in.
Apples next logical step to sell hardware is to offer Windows loaded right from their factory, they will see that they are selling millions more computers with Windows that they are with OS X, and eventually stop developing their OS due to the cost of development makes no sense. Take note that Microsoft with their look and feel of Vista more resembles OS X so apple users will feel more at home and Windows users will feel at home as well. If you loaded the iLife suit on Vista most apple users would be happy as a clam, not to mention that they can go to Best Buy or Circuit City and buy any peripheral or software with the confidence that it will work. I feel that Apple has a big picture game plan that they are following and by doing the things listed above they can put the hurt on companies like Dell, HP and Compaq. They can turn their OS back over to the open source movement to keep the true Apple zealots happy while selling millions more computers.