If Apple is to gain more than 15%-20% world market share it will have to release OS X for the PC. Up till now  Apple’s OS only works on their own hardware. Indeed one of the reasons their computers traditionally work so well is because they produce their own hardware and design software to run on it.

However it is highly likely that other companies will always be able to produce cheaper hardware than Apple and since so many people out there like ‘cheap’ it seems unlikely Apple hardware will ever achieve more than 20% world market share. So if Apple want to push Microsoft from the top of the podium they will have to do what Microsoft did and sell their software to run on others’ hardware. Microsoft are looking weaker now than ever having lost much consumer loyalty with their much maligned Windows Vista OS. Many of these users are now switching to Mac. But are they switching rapidly enough? The main barrier is the price of the hardware and I can’ help feeling that Apple could gain more ‘switchers’ if it removed this barrier by releasing OS X for the PC. This window of opportunity will not last forever and Microsoft will eventually pull their socks up.

Now that Macs are running Intel processors the technical challenges of supporting third party hardware have decreased significantly. Indeed hackers of the OSx86 project already got OS X running on several models of PC. Given this I don’t believe it would be too challenging for Apple to officially release and support OS X on a selection of third party hardware. Over time the supported hardware would grow. Certainly there would be minimum specs and certainly only certain graphics cards would be supported. But is this really any different to Vista and its own support of third party hardware?

Many feel Apple would never make such a move because of the damage it might cause to its own hardware sales. I disagree. Apple could continue to produce and sell high quality hardware which, for the extra money,  would run OS X more smoothly than others. Again, is this any different to Vista? Some hardware simply runs Vista better than other hardware, right? And despite the fact Vista will (sort of) run on a $400 PC, people continue to buy $2500 PCs. Similarly even if you had the option of running OS X on $400 non-Apple hardware, many would still choose to buy more expensive and higher quality Apple hardware whether they need more speed or simply enjoy a smooth ride.

There is some evidence to support my suspicion that Apple will release OS X for the PC in the next five years. First, the move to Intel processors. Second , the porting of OS X apps like Safari to Windows. Third, the cross-platform cloud computing of Mobile Me. Fourth, the complete support for Exchange announced for iPhone 2.0 and Snow Leopard. And finally the fact Apple have done nothing to stop Psystar from selling their Mac clones. Apple is allowing Psystar to continue selling their clones because they are interested observers getting some free market research. Instead of suing Psystar like so many believe they will, Apple will before long sell them copies of OS X.

Perhaps even Snow Leopard will be released for the PC, if Apple are ready.

Five years is a long time in tech. Within those five years Apple will have made all the necessary preparations to release OS X for the PC. This includes tightening security in OS X, Quicktime and Safari, developing full support for core Microsoft technologies like Exchange and building in third party hardware support and hardware detection into OS X. Apple may also be waiting to steal Microsoft’s thunder just as they are about to release Windows 7.

You heard it here first!

When Jobs leaves Apple who will replace him as CEO?

Scott Forstall.

Jobs brought Scoot with him from NeXT in 1997 and since then Scott has been at the centre of  Mac OS X’s development. Three days before WWDC 2008 Scott was promoted to Senior VP of iPhone Software, a position which answers directly to Jobs. Scott Forstall also shares Steve Jobs’ evil grin.

Steve and Scott seem close. Father and son close. Scott Forrstall is definitely being groomed to be CEO. When he is addressing an audiencehe he even reminds me of Jobs.

Going back some years when Jobs dropped out of Reed College after only one semester he continued to attend classes, including one in calligraphy. Forstall studied Symbolic Systems at Stanford, a study used in the field of anthropology and sociology to refer to a system of interconnected symbolic meanings. Sounds a little like calligraphy to me.

So maybe the two have a spiritual connection. Perhaps one day we’ll also find out that Forstall too has experimented with LSD. Since Jobs said of his own experiments that they were “one of the two or three most important things he has done in his life” and also stated that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not understand certain aspects of his thinking, I certainly hope for Forstall’s sake he has experimented with LSD. If he hasn’t he may not get the job after all.

- Johnny Appleseed

On a recent trip to the Apple Store in Regent Street London I noticed all their display machines were running Deep Freeze Mac by software vendor Faronics.

First off my gripe with this is that they are using a 3rd party product to secure their own computers. Come on guys (Apple Geniuses), it reflects poorly on Mac OS X’s built-in security, which is considerable, that they would rely on a foreign product for security.

Secondly it shows a lack of trust for us, the customers. In addition to the S.S. style  security guards in theur black uniforms and the members of staff wearing Jobs outfits, blue jeans and black shirts, who are ready to pounce on any hapless kid who tries to plug his or her iPod or iPhone into one of their Macs (for shame!), now we have display machines which are allegedly bulletproofed from tampering by scarcely trusted customers.

From the blurb: “Deep Freeze Mac helps eliminate workstation damage and downtime by making computer configurations indestructible. Once Deep Freeze Mac is installed on a workstation, any changes made to the computer—regardless of whether they are accidental or malicious—are never permanent. Deep Freeze Mac provides immediate immunity from many of the problems that plague computers today—accidental system misconfiguration, malicious software activity, and incidental system degradation.”

Read the rest here

Do any other Apple Stores use this product?

Anybody know how to crack it? I booted an Apple Store mac into Single User Mode and ran ‘rm -rf *’ for several minutes, to no avail