One of the things that make the Macs the (almost) perfect running machines there are is the fact that Apple keeps their hardware configuration under control. Thus, the Cupertino-based company is capable of always delivering a top notch experience to all of its users by carefully testing and optimizing OS X for the limited number of hardware configurations available for the Mac platform.
The question that every Mac user must have asked themselves at least once is “Should Apple make OS X available on other, custom hardware?” Should it allow the people that already run OS X on their PCs to buy the OS and legally install it on their computers? Should “Run OS X on Macs and PCs” be a part of the OS X description?
At the moment, I wouldn't put my money on the fact that Apple will even think about such a bold move, mainly because it is already doing quite well - check the increase rate of its market share. But, just in case it will ever think about such a move, let's see what the pros and cons would be.
The thing is that, in the pros department, there are very few aspects that Apple should count on. To be even more exact, there is only one good thing that would come out of such a scheme (and a pretty good one, if you ask me): OS X gaining a bigger chunk of market share, thus hitting its direct competitor, Windows, where it hurts the most.
The fact is that an increase in market share is hypothetical even after making OS X ready for any hardware configuration. But, what is the reason that would make OS X's market share increase in such a case?
Because it would most probably be adopted by the users already running OS X on their PCs, by the users that had enough bad experiences with the other OSes available on the market and would decide to try it for a change, and by the users that would have OS X installed by their friends or family as a “better alternative” to their current OS. And from what I know, there are quite a lot of PC users that match these three categories.
The good news for Apple in the case of a market share increase scenario is the fact that the company will also experience quite a boost in profit. This will, logically, lead the Cupertino-based company to release an even higher quality OS to be able to protect its profit and keep and/or expand its newly gained user base.
Now that I have covered the thing that a “born to be wild” Apple will do with OS X, let's go through those that point against such a bold move.
The first con would be the higher incidence of software-hardware conflicts that will automatically ruin the user experience that made OS X famous in the first place. The news of the software problems and the system crashes will quickly spread around and will make all the users think twice before buying OS X and installing it on their own PC.
There is only one problem with this: the users that already run OS X on PC hardware have reported no such experiences. A fact that made me think twice before thinking of this scenario as one of the cons. But, considering the huge hardware combination one could think of, the possibility is still there.
The second place in the cons department is taken by the increase of the security and/or malware risk once OS X starts gaining market share. This will automatically make it more interesting in the eyes of the people that would consider the OS X system a valuable addition to their collection of infected machines. Also, taking into consideration the fact that a bigger user base translates into a higher variety of software running on the OS, the number of security holes will also increase, a fact that can only mean a poorer experience for the OS users.
The third thing that stands against you legally installing OS X on your PC in the near future is the aspect that makes the Mac what it is and the very thing that recommended the previous two as viable components of the cons department: the user experience. In the event that Apple would release a PC compatible version of OS X, this is the thing that most people think that will go wrong: a quick quality decrease of the user experience.
There is a reason though that, as I have already stated above, makes me reconsider the lowering of the OS X user experience quality. 90% of the people running cracked versions of OS X on PCs report no software problems whatsoever due to the different hardware configurations.
Of course, the number of hardware configurations is quite limited by the fact that those cracked OS X versions only run on hardware components that Apple already uses in its Macs. Once the number of hardware configurations will increase, the need of hardware drivers will also rise, which can be the start of a huge stack of problems for the OS X on PC users.
As we all know, Apple is also famous for enjoying to create its own drivers for the hardware on which OS X runs; thus, the following question pops up – “Will Apple allow hardware manufacturers to deal with the driver development?”
Whether they will or not, from where I'm standing, there is only one possible outcome in such a situation: a bad one. Drivers created by manufacturers can lead to the software-hardware incompatibilities that we've already talked about and drivers developed by Apple would also lead to problems: shortages of drivers for certain hardware brands or even drivers with bugs if they are released on a hurry.
After giving it a quick spin and trying to see which the pros and cons for having OS X on PCs are, the fact is that I have already made my mind: Apple should be insane or highly courageous to pull such a stunt. But, to tell you the truth, I can only hope it will. Just to see if it got what it takes to beat Microsoft at its own game.
What do you think about running OS X on PCs? Are you one of the PC users that already run OS X and would like to buy it just to say thanks for a job well done? Do you consider releasing a PC-compatible OS X version a viable business move for Apple to make? Let everyone else know what you think about this subject in the comments.
