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View Full Version : Apple helping windows gain market share, what is this world coming to?!?


luck777jojo
5th September 2006, 08:29
An interesting article I found today on OS Weekly talks about how Apple has actually helped Microsoft gain a bit more market share. It all comes down to boot camp and the ability to run windows on an Intel based Mac.

After reading the article it almost seems as if Apple’s original plan is backfiring at the moment. Sure perhaps it will help the out in the long run but right now it doesn’t seem like that’s happening.

A lot of Mac users have been very happy to be running windows on their Macs now, and while in the past every person who switched over from Windows-based PCs to a Mac took the leap to an Apple OS as well, right now most people switching are keeping their Windows OS and just changing the hardware.

One of the biggest problems pointed out in the article is how Apple is not gaining as much market share with their OS as they would have hoped and the fact that they’re keeping it Mac only is hurting them a lot in the long run.

I have to agree with that point, perhaps I won’t switch over from my Linux/Windows combo to OS X anytime soon (even if an official release for general, non-apple hardware was available) but I might have added it to one of the OS I use, maybe for when I edit videos, or play around with Photoshop. Of course Windows would remain my gaming OS of choice and Linux would remain my general OS (for downloading pr0… erm... stuff).

At the same time I understand why Apple doesn’t want to release their OS for non-apple hardware from a technical point of view. I mean I completely understand that if they did release OS X for the general public it would be having compatibility issues left and right as well as crashing as much (if not more) than Windows XP.

Apple has it a lot easier only releasing their OS to apple based hardware; they don’t have to worry about some company releasing a new video card which may cause hardware conflicts or the multitude of different CPU, RAM, and motherboard combinations available for the rest of us non-apple users. Every hardware update they know about because they make it, so they make sure that compatibility is good, everything works, and nothing crashes.

Neither Windows nor Linux/BSD have that “advantage” they are not making sue that all hardware works fine, they cannot test all hardware, they don’t have a monopoly in the hardware released for the machines that use those operating systems.

Link to article (http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2320&Itemid=449)

meeklenet
11th December 2006, 01:39
Ah, but the thing here is that it means that why would you ever buy a windows only machine when you can get a duel or triple booting mother?

luck777jojo
11th December 2006, 03:40
why buy an overly expensive POS when you can build your own box and make it boot into linux of windows even simpler than using bootcamp.

Plus as far as I know there is still no way to boot easily into *nix if you're using a mac so...... WTF is the point

Ok3
26th January 2007, 20:18
Agree with Luck777jojo i rather build it myself and make it more powerful and cost less then apple. Also since i can't make new topic. Someone should talk about the iPhone apple is creating but having problem right now with Cisco.

Brodie Bruce
28th January 2007, 06:10
I would never use OS X, it's a piece of crap. But it is possible to easily run it on a multi-OS machine built for windows now that it works on intel-based processor. I personally have a machine running Debian, XP Pro and I installed OS X on it as well to see if it was even worth it. It wasn't. Needless to say that partition is now gone and has been given back to Debian :P


^^^and about the iPhone, the Cisco lawsuit isn't a problem, that will be settled and overwith no problem. The real problem with the iPhone is that they claim it uses OSX when it really doesn't, and the fact that it is locked-down and wont allow any 3rd party apps but only ones that Apple develops and over-charges for. Anyone who gets one is an ***** imo.

Ok3
30th January 2007, 18:26
Agree the iphone is way to expensive man. Seem like they are like making the market toward the rich. Also if you take a look at Window Vista is look almost like Linux and OS X window.

HELLARISES
4th March 2007, 05:25
Although I personally like Macs more, Apple needs to do these kinds of things to boost its popularity even if it is with a rival.

Dark Blaze
10th March 2007, 15:40
I think that Apple wanted to get more people to buy into the whole Mac concept in any way possible. The reason they wouldn’t buy a Macintosh before is because they had elements in Windows for example that couldn’t be run on anything but Windows, but they needed to have it even though they wanted to try out a Mac. Now that they are given the option, they are going for it.

The Mac OS is popular, maybe not as much as Windows, but definitely is increasing in reputation. In the long run Apple is not hurting by this because it is getting more and more people purchasing Macintosh equipment which have a big number of the price tag.

At the end of the day, it’s all good because if you just wanted to run windows, you could get a non-Apple system. If you wanted to have a cool case, you could get a custom mod for the laptop or tower you are going to buy. It’s all within reason, but surely I can’t imagine people dishing out hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros/RNB, etc in order to have a silver casing with an apple on it??