Notes: Mac OS X 10.4.2, Dell on OS X, Midtown store

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Mac OS X 10.4.2 Development Winds Down



As expected, it appears that Apple over the last few days continued its work on Mac OS X 10.4.2, the second maintenance release to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, pumping out several new builds of the software update.



According to reports already present on Internet blog sites, the company on Tuesday delivered build 8C32 of Mac OS X 10.4.2 to its developer community, which weighed in at approximately 55MB.



Rumor has it that the latest build delivers minor corrections to QuickTime, AirPort, and DVD Player, bringing the total number of bug fixes and enhancements expected in the update to just over 90.



Based on recent developer chatter and the sheer number of fixes rumored for inclusion in Mac OS X 10.4.2, it appears the system update will be one of the most significant in terms of overall stability and system reliability in recent times.



It's believed that Apple hopes to squash every known glitch in the Tiger operating system with the release of Mac OS X 10.4.2, where the prior Mac OS X 10.4.1 Tiger update was reserved for the most immediate and critical incompatibilities.



Dell Happy to Market Mac OS X



In an article on Fortune.com, journalist David Kirkpatrick reveals that he recently emailed Michael Dell, the cofounder and now chairman of Dell, and asked if he'd be interested in the Mac OS, assuming that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs ever decides to license it to PC companies.



"If Apple decides to open the Mac OS to others, we would be happy to offer it to our customers," Dell reportedly wrote back in an email.



Says Kirkpatrick, "It's the first time any PC industry executive has openly shown enthusiasm for selling machines with Apple's software. Though that's all Dell would say for the record, I suspect his interest is not unknown to Jobs."



Apple Store Midtown



As if there was any doubt that Apple will open a very elaborate flagship retail store in the heart of Manhattan this year, a new company job listing posted to Craigslis pretty much spells it out and further confirms the General Motors Building as the site.



The company is seeking both full and part time "Apple Retail Creatives" to "support the vision of creating a legendary gathering place to engage and educate our customers in surprising and delighting ways," the listing says.



At the base of the job posting, Apple states that the primary job location is the "GM Plaza."
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 50
    mithimithi Posts: 5member
    Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooo.



    Apple Can not let delll use mac os x on there computers. Thats just wrong. Apple would lose all its syyle

    (in my opinion)
  • Reply 2 of 50
    synosyno Posts: 33member
    Whats so wrong with them big ugly cheap plasic dell boxs anyways?
  • Reply 3 of 50
    scavangerscavanger Posts: 286member
    You guys can sit around here and look at apple like a religion. I will look at Apple like a business. Licensing is key. Licensing = a win for Apple. Licensing OSX to other OEM's would open up a huge platform for the Mac.
  • Reply 4 of 50
    the cool gutthe cool gut Posts: 1,714member
    *sniff - looks like our baby's growing up! *sob
  • Reply 5 of 50
    stustanleystustanley Posts: 236member
    image if dells did all ship with osx, talk about market penetration. If i was Steve Jobs, i would do it just to see the look on Bill Gates' face!!!



    Though, i do think that apple should get some pantners on x86, SONY could be a good one, to name one.



    stu
  • Reply 6 of 50
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    oh, look, michael dell is willing to sell any box loaded with anything that people will pay good money to buy.



    BIG F'N SURPRISE.



    secondly, while microsoft used licensing back in the day to be the biggest now, last i checked, that big-ness has come back to nip them in the hindquarters, as they're now too big and have to support too many pieces of hardware floating about to even tie their shoes without splitting their pants. you think steve likes the idea of apple becoming that?
  • Reply 7 of 50
    bwhalerbwhaler Posts: 260member
    Interesting move by Dell.



    More importantly, it is GREAT to read Apple is still developing fixes for 10.4.2.



    I really hope it is true that the .2 release will FINALLY make Tiger behave as it should. The bugs in syncing, .mac, mail, memory leaks, etc., etc. have been painful and very un-Apple.



    I was thinking that it would be .4, maybe .3, before Tiger was acceptable quality. All will be forgiven--but not forgotten--if Apple pulls this off with .2.



    Fingers crossed...
  • Reply 8 of 50
    bwhalerbwhaler Posts: 260member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by scavanger

    You guys can sit around here and look at apple like a religion. I will look at Apple like a business. Licensing is key. Licensing = a win for Apple. Licensing OSX to other OEM's would open up a huge platform for the Mac.



    You obviously don't understand the business.



    If Apple licenses OSX for standard PC's:



    1. Microsoft stops development of Office and Media Player for OSX immediately, and the Mac platform is dead except for the smallest number of hobbiest. See the Amiga fan sites if you are curious what it will look like.



    2. Apple's hardware business goes to the floor since very few people will pay Apple prices just for nice cases.
  • Reply 9 of 50
    wingnutwingnut Posts: 197member
    I agree. If Apple licenses to Dell, they will hurt--unless they want to lose all their hardware sales.



    Not only that, Dells are quite crappy, IMO, especially all their entry level models. The workstation at my office is a Dell, and in the first 3 months, it fatally crashed 4 times, requiring a reformat each time. It had its third hard drive installed at about 6 months. Before you say it, I'm not a PC newbie. I've built maybe a dozen systems and have never had this kind of trouble running MS office. I wasn't the only person in the office with these issues either. If Apple allows OSX to be installed on this kind of crap, who knows what it will do for their reputation of "simply working." I know Dell is planning a "premium" line of PCs soon, which must really say something about the rest of their desktop product line. I still think Apple needs to keep things proprietary, if only to protect the image of system stability that helps them sell systems.
  • Reply 10 of 50
    ct77ct77 Posts: 49member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BWhaler

    You obviously don't understand the business.



    If Apple licenses OSX for standard PC's:



    1. Microsoft stops development of Office and Media Player for OSX immediately, and the Mac platform is dead except for the smallest number of hobbiest. See the Amiga fan sites if you are curious what it will look like.



    2. Apple's hardware business goes to the floor since very few people will pay Apple prices just for nice cases.




    On top of that, the Macintosh experience (trouble free computing, very few crashes etc.) is largely due to the fact that Apple "makes the whole widget".



    scavanger, I'll never say never, but controlling the hardware has always been a big part of the DNA at Apple. I don't see that changing any time soon.



    Also, if Apple can compete on price with their hardware (and I think they will, more and more) then why let Dell make money selling hardware? Apple can make all the hardware sales themselves -- direct.
  • Reply 11 of 50
    jambojambo Posts: 3,036member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Wingnut

    I agree. If Apple licenses to Dell, they will hurt--unless they want to lose all their hardware sales.





    What if Apple licensed Mac OS X to Dell, Sony, hp, etc. but NOT iLife?



    That would be the clear differential between buying a Mac and a clone, that Apple's machine come bundled with iLife (and maybe even Pages, Numbers and Keynote) but either a) The customer would have to purchase these separately with a clone machine (Apple wins) or b) Dell, Sony, hp pay an additional license fee to bundle iLife and/or iWork (again Apple wins).
  • Reply 12 of 50
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BWhaler

    You obviously don't understand the business.



    If Apple licenses OSX for standard PC's:



    1. Microsoft stops development of Office and Media Player for OSX immediately, and the Mac platform is dead except for the smallest number of hobbiest. See the Amiga fan sites if you are curious what it will look like.



    2. Apple's hardware business goes to the floor since very few people will pay Apple prices just for nice cases.




    That's nonsense. If this happens, it won't be for at least a year, possibly two. If Apple is working on "Numbers", and can put a version of Filemaker into the product then they would have a good suite.



    Both Keynote and Pages are going to be upgraded.



    If MS goes to XML as they are saying that they will, then file compatability will be easy.



    Besides, Apple and any PC companies they might be working with would be aware of this, and would have something to offer. OpenOffice would also work.



    Apple could always have Dell and others make sure that their machines are compatable. Apple used to test clone machines for a fee. They could do it here as well.





    As for this huge update. I now think that I know why Apple came out with 10.4 when it did, warts and all. They didn't want anything to distract from the "we are going to Intel" focus of the dev. conference. That was worth releasing pretty buggy software.



    Now they want to hurry and fix it so that the problems, again, don't distract from their plans.
  • Reply 13 of 50
    scavangerscavanger Posts: 286member
    Microsoft couldn't drop office development with out the risk of having more antitrust lawsuits filed. Hardware margins are shit in every oem but Apple for the most part, becuase Apple's prices are higher. Apple made I beleive a billion dollars on software this past year. Given there small market, you have to wonder how much they would make in a licensed market. Apple will do whats ever best for it's business. I beleive that is licensing, there is really no other way for Apple to overtake microsoft with out licensing.
  • Reply 14 of 50
    geekdreamsgeekdreams Posts: 280member
    Why would they want to? MS is big and slow and dumb. Apple is small and fast and smart. No reason to ruin their hardware business in order to make money from software licensing.



    As others have said, the Mac is successful because you get great software with compatible hardware. It just works. If Apple has to support a million different hardware configurations they'll lose focus of their main business, which has always been hardware sales.
  • Reply 15 of 50
    geekdreamsgeekdreams Posts: 280member
    Someone on Engadget made the good point that OS X's marketshare wouldn't neccessarily go through the roof just being licensed by Dell: "One of the reasons Dell is so successfuly [sic] in the business world is because they sell MICROSOFT based machines. Do you think a Fortune 100 company is going to buy a unit from Dell just because they are Dell? No, they bought it because it was a low cost machine that ran WINDOWS."



    Also, licensing OS X to other manufacturers means they'd be taking MS head-on in an OS war, and Bill Gates won't play nice. He would likely raise the licensing costs for Windows, and Dell would quickly stop offering OS X in order to cut costs and restore whatever thin profit margin they have these days.



    I don't think MS would stop developing Office for Mac, though. As long as there are Mac users willing to buy the software, MS will continue to sell it.
  • Reply 16 of 50
    synosyno Posts: 33member
    "Mac OS X will only run on Macs. Apple has no plans to sell Mac OS X software to run on PCs," an Apple spokesperson said in an e-mail response to questions about Dell"



    fully story here

    http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...pcworld/121421
  • Reply 17 of 50
    There are both good and bad things about OSX on Dell's. First of all there is very little margin hardware regardless of the vendor. Microsoft would benefit from OSX growth because adoptors would need to purchase Office for OSX. I am a firm believer that "It's the software stupid". If Steve had not screwed around with IBM years ago at NEXT the OS landscape could very well be much different today. Yes, the uniqueness that is a Mac is wonderful. But from a business stand point you need to look at what will do the most for the brand. OSX has been called the best OS ever by more than just "Mac People". I work for a huge international tech company and we have always been Windows based. I was one of a very few fortunate enough to use a Mac. Things have changed. Recently our head of North America just got a Powerbook! The ability for us to switch to a different OS without having to switch hardware would make it much easier to gain acceptance. If Apple did some exclusive initial offerings with a Dell or Sony it could be kept under control and the driver issue kept in check. It would be foolish not to experiment with options.
  • Reply 18 of 50
    nathan22tnathan22t Posts: 317member
    Everything is fair game these days at Apple.

    Nothing would surprise me.



    I fully expect multi button mice and I also expect Mac OS to be sold for PC's if it ever does happen to make business sense.



    Apple will sell movie online and they will make a tablet and they will make a pda thing and a camera and a game system. Well, perhaps not the last two or three.
  • Reply 19 of 50
    wingnutwingnut Posts: 197member
    Quote:

    What if Apple licensed Mac OS X to Dell, Sony, hp, etc. but NOT iLife?



    Honestly, I don't use iLife that much, and iTunes is already free on both platforms, so I don't see that as a big carrot to convince windows users to buy Mac over Dell hardware.



    As for MS competing, yeah, they just might. Maybe worse would happen if Apple went for just OS licenses--maybe they would put WPA into OSX, so you have to ACTIVATE it, just like windows!
  • Reply 20 of 50
    franksargentfranksargent Posts: 4,694member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Wingnut

    I agree. If Apple licenses to Dell, they will hurt--unless they want to lose all their hardware sales.



    Not only that, Dells are quite crappy, IMO, especially all their entry level models. The workstation at my office is a Dell, and in the first 3 months, it fatally crashed 4 times, requiring a reformat each time. It had its third hard drive installed at about 6 months. Before you say it, I'm not a PC newbie. I've built maybe a dozen systems and have never had this kind of trouble running MS office. I wasn't the only person in the office with these issues either. If Apple allows OSX to be installed on this kind of crap, who knows what it will do for their reputation of "simply working." I know Dell is planning a "premium" line of PCs soon, which must really say something about the rest of their desktop product line. I still think Apple needs to keep things proprietary, if only to protect the image of system stability that helps them sell systems.








    WOW, a pissing contest!



    My turn?



    I've owned several Dells, and there are several hundred of them where I work, no computer is perfect. However, I've never experienced ANY serious issues with my Dell's, and know of no others from my collegues here at work. Your experience appears to be an exception, for if it were the norm, HOW COULD DELL HOLD THE NUMBER ONE MARKET POSITION?



    And yes, I've owned Mac's for over 12 years now, and I use them much more then my Dell PeeCee's (or my Gateway, HP, IBM, and even Zenith over the past 22+ years). I hated System's 7-9. Can you say CRASH? Can you say REINSTALL? I really like OS Hex, however, even now at 10.4.1, guess what? Can you say CRASH? Can you say REINSTALL? It is getting better though. maybe someday it will be as stable as Winblows XP on a Dell!



    BTW, I really, really, REALLY hate the Spinning Beachball of Death (SBD), that type of experience absolutely NEVER happens under Winblows XP. From my experience, the Winblows GUI is much more responsive then the OS Hex GUI, and sometimes I really, really, REALLY need to get something done in a hurry! Yes, the overall OS Hex experience is much better than the Winblows XP experience (and boy, do I hate the XP desktop color scheme), Apple just needs to sent the SBD to that gulag in Gitmo!



    Whew, THAT was a long wizz.



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