4 ms·

The gist of the article (which is the gist of the headline, and the gist of several comments I've read about this on HN) is that Apple doesn't support X and don

The gist of the article (which is the gist of the headline, and the gist of several comments I've read about this on HN) is that Apple doesn't support X and don't whine about it. If you want OSX buy a mac, if you want open development don't buy an iPhone, if you want X, don't buy a product that's not X. That's true in a tautological way--it's true by definition. But it's not useful. I don't want a mac--I want a netbook that runs OS X. I don't want an iPhone--I want a phone with an iPhone-quality software stack with an open software ecosystem. These are not mutually exclusive--they're not inconsistent. There's no inherent property of OSX that excludes netbooks. There's no inherent property of the iPhone software stack that excludes an open software ecosystem. These are arbitrary choices by Apple--perhaps good for a lot of people--but not what I want. And so I want these things--netbooks, phones--that don't exist. Well, fine. I'll make them. But then there are people out there who are actively preventing me from making them, and thus having the things I want. Not only is Apple saying "We don't care about X" but they're saying "we hate X and will prevent it from coming into being." It's being needlessly antagonistic. That's where the whining comes from. People want things that don't exist, they try to make them, and something actively prevents it. Now you could theoretically go the other way--we have an open software ecosystem and let's construct a great software stack--we have netbooks and let's construct a great OS. But this must be harder to do, because (as an experimental fact) it happens much less often.

tumult 17y ago
Apple is preventing you from making your own netbook or phone?
- rbanffy 17y ago
  If OSX tests the hardware to see if it is a Mac and fails on Mac-compatible but non-Apple hardware, then yes: Apple is actively preventing people from building netbooks that run OSX. It's just not a big problem, IMHO. If you want a Unix netbook, get one and install Linux, *BSD or OpenSolaris and get done with it. All three are much better unixes than OSX
  - tumult 17y ago
    you're not building a netbook, you're buying some other company's netbook and running Apple's OS on it.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      You are building a netbook the same way a lot of companies do: you are buying it from someone else. The main difference is that you are not stamping your brand on top of it.
tvon 17y ago
> And so I want these things--netbooks, phones--that don't exist. Well, fine. I'll make them. But then there are people out there who are actively preventing me from making them, and thus having the things I want. Not only is Apple saying "We don't care about X" but they're saying "we hate X and will prevent it from coming into being." It's being needlessly antagonistic. Two points here I've been mulling over for the past few days: 1) If Apple did nothing to prevent it (if there was no EULA restriction or DSMOS[1]), running a Hackintosh system would still mostly be about finding supported hardware or getting some unsupported hardware to "mostly work", and there would still be no promises that a point release wouldn't inadvertently hose your system. Honestly, aside from feeling better about breaking the EULA I don't see how it would be that much different. 2) Mostly speaking in regards to the Palm syncing with iTunes, but also in regards to Hackintosh systems, if Apple does nothing then they will be in a position will they will have to support these systems on some level. Taking the Pre as an example, who is the consumer going to blame when a future iTunes update breaks syncing? Who will they call for support? Consider, if the Pre syncing went on without interference with Apple and worked fairly well it would certainly be included in future devices from Palm, and a similar tactic would likely be employed by other device makers. All it would take would be a change in the iPhone OS or iTunes to piss off millions of consumers. You'd get PC World running "Apple update breaks millions of consumer devices" (or worse yet, something resulting in data loss), with single sentence somewhere at the end about how these features aren't actually supported by Apple anyway. Why would Apple allow this? They are already the target of some absurd outrage as it is. Not speaking to you specifically, drewcrawford, but it seems like most people don't want Hackintosh systems to be quietly accepted, they want them to be supported and tested. [1] While I run a few Hackintosh systems, I'm not sure what other intentional barriers are in place other than the DSMOS an the EULA.

tumult 17y ago

Apple is preventing you from making your own netbook or phone?

rbanffy 17y ago
If OSX tests the hardware to see if it is a Mac and fails on Mac-compatible but non-Apple hardware, then yes: Apple is actively preventing people from building netbooks that run OSX. It's just not a big problem, IMHO. If you want a Unix netbook, get one and install Linux, *BSD or OpenSolaris and get done with it. All three are much better unixes than OSX
- tumult 17y ago
  you're not building a netbook, you're buying some other company's netbook and running Apple's OS on it.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    You are building a netbook the same way a lot of companies do: you are buying it from someone else. The main difference is that you are not stamping your brand on top of it.

tvon 17y ago

> And so I want these things--netbooks, phones--that don't exist. Well, fine. I'll make them. But then there are people out there who are actively preventing me from making them, and thus having the things I want. Not only is Apple saying "We don't care about X" but they're saying "we hate X and will prevent it from coming into being." It's being needlessly antagonistic. Two points here I've been mulling over for the past few days: 1) If Apple did nothing to prevent it (if there was no EULA restriction or DSMOS[1]), running a Hackintosh system would still mostly be about finding supported hardware or getting some unsupported hardware to "mostly work", and there would still be no promises that a point release wouldn't inadvertently hose your system. Honestly, aside from feeling better about breaking the EULA I don't see how it would be that much different. 2) Mostly speaking in regards to the Palm syncing with iTunes, but also in regards to Hackintosh systems, if Apple does nothing then they will be in a position will they will have to support these systems on some level. Taking the Pre as an example, who is the consumer going to blame when a future iTunes update breaks syncing? Who will they call for support? Consider, if the Pre syncing went on without interference with Apple and worked fairly well it would certainly be included in future devices from Palm, and a similar tactic would likely be employed by other device makers. All it would take would be a change in the iPhone OS or iTunes to piss off millions of consumers. You'd get PC World running "Apple update breaks millions of consumer devices" (or worse yet, something resulting in data loss), with single sentence somewhere at the end about how these features aren't actually supported by Apple anyway. Why would Apple allow this? They are already the target of some absurd outrage as it is. Not speaking to you specifically, drewcrawford, but it seems like most people don't want Hackintosh systems to be quietly accepted, they want them to be supported and tested. [1] While I run a few Hackintosh systems, I'm not sure what other intentional barriers are in place other than the DSMOS an the EULA.