The Macintosh was behind for a number of years when it came to
the operating system. While the Mac OS felt solid, was fast, easy
to use, and very compatible with a wide range of Macs and hardware
peripherals, it fell behind in several ways.
First of all, the Mac OS was not designed to be a multitasking
OS. Early versions ran one program at a time. It was only with
System 4.2 that MultiFinder showed up; it gave the Mac OS the
ability to have more than one program loaded and running at a
time.
That's all the Mac OS could do - until Mac OS 8, when
multithreading was introduced. Multithreading lets the Mac do more
than one thing at a time (for example, you could be copying a file
to a disk and still open and close Finder windows).
The other problem with the Classic Mac OS was extensions. The
original version of the Mac OS did not have extensions, but in
later versions they had to be added in order to give the OS new
features. By Mac OS 9, many people had as many as 80 extensions
installed in order to give them extra capabilities and options.
Most of these were installed by default by the Mac OS Install
program. Those 80 extensions were also 80 potential problems and
reasons for the machine to crash.
Now that Mac OS X is out, we have true multitasking, and since
the OS is based on Unix, it's not very likely to crash. There has
been some talk that since Mac OS X is Unix-based; Apple should
port it to Intel.
Why does idea keep coming up?
Think of it this way: Apple has a 5% market share (depending who
you ask). The rest are PCs. Apple hopes to increase their market
share with Mac OS X and the programs available for it. Apple
recently announced that there are over 1,500 programs for
OS X. That's a lot of programs for a six-month-old OS.
If Apple were to port Mac OS X to Intel, think of all of
the people who would be able to use it. Those $899 Dell and Compaq
machines could be running OS X! It seems like Apple would
increase their OS market share.
Why is this not a good idea?
As I recently explained in my previous
article, there are also a lot of programs for OS 9. And
since OS 9 was not ever made to run on Intel hardware, those
people using PCs running OS X would most likely not be able to
run in "classic" mode to use older Mac OS 9 apps.
How many people would actually use OS X on a PC? I have a
feeling that most people would stay with Windows, partially because
that is what they are used to, partially because of Windows' better
support for PC hardware items (video cards, sound cards, network
cards, etc.), and partially because the word "Mac" is still
associated by many with those who are beginners or graphics
professionals.
Would Apple increase their market share by selling an OS to
people who already have the non-Apple computers? Maybe in OS terms,
but in terms of actual Macintosh computers being used, no. Why
should anyone buy a Mac if they already have a PC that runs the
same software? And since Macs do cost more than PCs when you buy
them initially (and Macs usually have a higher resale value and
last longer), people wanting to run the Mac OS wouldn't necessarily
buy a Mac. I would probably look toward an IBM ThinkPad.
To understand what would happen, you have to look back to what
happened with the Mac clones in the mid-90s. Apple thought they
could increase their OS market share by selling the Mac ROMs and
licensing the Mac OS to other companies and letting them make their
own Macintosh compatible computers. What happened was companies
like Power Computing, Motorola, and Umax took over a good deal of the Mac
market and almost pushed Apple out of their own territory.
These other companies could make "Macs" cheaper and more
powerful than Apple. Of course people bought them and ignored
Apple's expensive and comparatively slow offerings. This may be why
there are so few 9500s, 8600s, and 9600s on the used market today.
Just imagine what would have happened if Apple let this
continue. Apple would probably have been reduced to a software-only
company, providing the OS for other companies that sold the
hardware.
If Apple ported Mac OS X to Intel, the same thing would happen.
Apple's OS might gain market share, but it would be a very big
risk. If it failed to sell, Apple could lose even more market
share.
If it succeeded, Mac OS X would gain market share, but
there would be fewer and fewer Apple computers in use, possibly
resulting in an end to Apple hardware.
Porting Mac OS X to Intel would be a big mistake.
