Theocacao: Dvorak Says Apple Will Switch to Windows

Dvorak Says Apple Will Switch to Windows

Is it April first? You'd sure think so the way John Dvorak is writing. In the most unbelievably unbelievable story from a wintel columnist in some time, John claims that Apple (yes, Apple) will dump Mac OS X for Windows. Okay, now, I see you're doing that thing where you laugh so hard that no sound comes out. Breathe and read on.

This thing actually made it to digg, and it's on PC Magazine's site, so some people are going to believe it. Here's a little snippet:

This switch to Windows may have originally been planned for this year and may partly explain why Adobe and other high-end apps were not ported to the Apple x86 platform when it was announced in January. At Macworld, most observers said that these new Macs could indeed run Windows now.

Bigger companies than Apple have dropped their proprietary OSs in favor of Windows—think IBM and OS/2. IBM also jumped on the Linux bandwagon over its own AIX version of Unix. Business eventually trumps sentimentality in any large company.

There are no words.

For the sake of all of us, let's just pray that Apple doesn't do everything just like IBM. I want to take a minute and look at this objectively (just because it's 1:44am and I'm not doing anything else).

Apple has spent the last nine years building and marketing a world-class, industry-leading OS. It has implemented a set of APIs that not only exceeds but blows away anything else shipping. It's built and marketed an unmatched set of apps on top of these APIs, and said APIs realstically have no hope of running on top of Windows.

By comparison, OS/2 had very little in the way of native apps and languished for years before IBM stopped supporting it. Its main feature was the ability to run Windows apps. As far as AIX, there is a transition, but it is not so hopelessly distant from Linux in design to make a switch implausible.

Apple has always said it was a hardware company, not a software company.

No, they've always said they make the whole widget so that they can design the whole experience. They do, however, make the majority of their money from hardware sales.

To preserve the Mac's slick cachet, there is no reason an executive software layer couldn't be fitted onto Windows to keep the Mac look and feel. Various tweaks could even improve the OS itself.

Like, huh?

Most were not initially pleased by the switch to Intel's architecture, and this will make them crazy.

Luckily, Apple has a master showman, Steve Jobs. He'll announce that now everything can run on a Mac. He'll say that the switch to Windows gives Apple the best of both worlds. He'll say this is not your daddy's Windows. He'll cajole and cajole, and still hear a few boos.

This is really interesting. It seems that to Dvorak, Steve's keynotes are all smoke and mirrors. It sounds like he believes that there's nothing out there better than Windows. I guess I'm just glad I can tell the difference.

Anyway, am I the only one that would pay top dollar to see Steve's reaction if he ever reads this article?

Dvorak Says Apple Will Switch to Windows
Posted Feb 16, 2006 — 19 comments below

Carl — Feb 16, 06 775

Dvorak == crackhead

lne — Feb 16, 06 776

The entire argument falls when one notes that, if Apple wanted to run Windows on their Macs, then they would engineer them so that current Windows versions could run.
Uh, that, and the fact that OS X is years ahead of technological advancements that Windows users can only dream of at the moment. And is much better on the inside than Windows will ever, ever be.

It'd be like throwing away a Ferrari to get a horse cart.

Samo — Feb 16, 06 777

I like attention, too.

But I would never make a complete idiot out of myself just to get it.

Alastair — Feb 16, 06 778

If you listen to the This Week In Tech podcast, you'll realise that Dvorak is just an attention whore. He just likes floating these ridiculous theories. This particular one he mentioned on the show saying that it was prompted by an email someone sent which seemed to make sense.

He even claimed he did some research (read: googling) and found that the facts matched up. I wouldn't even click on that link to ZDNet just so they don't get the satisfaction of advertising dollars. I wouldn't go to his blog either.

alastair — Feb 16, 06 779

whoops, i meant pcmag, not zdnet.

Jesper — Feb 16, 06 780

The worst thing with this is that if Apple even tries to up the compatibility with Windows by the tiniest pico-compatibility-unit (such as improved SMB and such in Leopard; stuff that's been continually improved since 10.0), Dvorak will undeniably crawl out of the woodwork and go "see? I told you so!" even though he's arguing something completely different.

Dvorak's role is being a button-pusher. With very few exceptions, he's paid to be provocative, not insightful. I could go on, but just read Alastair's comment above.

Mike K — Feb 16, 06 781

Yes, and this is the same man that claims:

"I'm John C. Dvorak, and I get no spam!"

:)

Ben Kazez — Feb 16, 06 782

Is this the same John Dvorak who said this, in 1984, in the SF Examiner?

“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse.’ There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”

Benji — Feb 16, 06 783

Regarding the Intel switch:

Steve Jobs:
"The soul of a Mac is its operating system."

Phil Schiller:
"Why do people buy a Mac? It’s not because of the processor. Its because of the operating system, OS X."

The defence rests.

Abhi Beckert — Feb 16, 06 784

Dvorak says lots of things, wether or not he actually thinks they're true is another story.

Jobs — Feb 19, 06 796

At one point, if someone published an article saying Apple would switch to Intel processors, one would've gotten comments as above. Doesn't seem that ridiculous now does it?

Scott Stevenson — Feb 19, 06 798

At one point, if someone published an article saying Apple would switch to Intel processors, one would've gotten comments as above.

Personally, I never found a switch to Intel that far fetch, but it really has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The user doesn't really interact with the processor, so it makes sense that Apple would use the one that best fits the requirements.

By contrast, the underlying Windows subsystems very much affect the user's experience.

job — Feb 20, 06 801

Nothing seems far fetched once something happens. User experience? How about the switch from OS 9 to OS X? Didn't that affect UE?

Hypothetically speaking, Apple could provide a VM in order to run 'older' mac os x apps within windows as it did with OSX and OS 9.

Instead of dismissing an author's opinion with ridicule and doing a dick cheney on him, I think one should think about it.

Scott Stevenson — Feb 20, 06 802

User experience? How about the switch from OS 9 to OS X? Didn't that affect UE?

Yes, that's my point. The user interacts with the OS, not the processor.

Hypothetically speaking, Apple could provide a VM in order to run 'older' mac os x apps within windows as it did with OSX and OS 9.

Okay, but why?

Instead of dismissing an author's opinion with ridicule and doing a dick cheney on him, I think one should think about it.

There was no actual ridicule intended. That's not really what I do. Dvorak has made an statement that contradicts common sense without any real supporting evidence or even a motive. It's difficult to respond to that without giving the impression of ridicule.

If Apple was looking for an easy way out of OS development, they could have done it a long time ago. Instead, they've fought tooth and nail to get the level of control and quality they have now.

thoran — Feb 22, 06 825

Cocoa already runs on Microsoft operating systems. Or at least would given a few hours or weeks (at most) work.

Apple has a habit of 'introducing' new technologies from the coterie of heretofore unfamiliar NeXT technologies.

Hey look! We've got this great new thing called (pick one):

* Cocoa (aka OpenStep)
* NetBoot (aka NetBoot)
* Pages (aka Pages---though not a NeXT, Inc. product)
* NetInfo (aka NetInfo)
* Xgrid (aka Zilla.app)
* Spotlight (aka DigitalLibrarian.app---somewhat different)
* and so on...

That's not to say nothing is new.

Scott Stevenson — Feb 23, 06 826

Cocoa already runs on Microsoft operating systems. Or at least would given a few hours or weeks (at most) work

I disagree. The modern set of Mac OS X APIs is not OpenStep. I talked with Apple folks (ex-Nexties) about this not to long ago and they reaffirmed my belief. Anything is possible, but there's a big gap between possible and plausible.

In any case, it's still not clear why Apple would do such a thing.

jobs — Feb 25, 06 843

"In any case, it's still not clear why Apple would do such a thing."

When Jobs was touting the PowerPC chip as the fastest, best chip ever, no one thought a day would come Apple would switch to Intel.

Agreed, Jobs had a reason for switching. IBM wasn't fast enough and couldn't provide a cooler processor so according to Jobs he was forced to switch. Keeps all the apple heads nodding in agreement.

But consider the fact, Jobs has been doing cross compilation of OS X for the past 5 years! On one hand, Jobs keeps touting how he chose the best processor and on the other hand keeps a copy of OSX on Intel.

If it were 5 years back, I would've said the same thing: it's not clear why Apple would do such a thing.

Scott Stevenson — Feb 25, 06 845

But consider the fact, Jobs has been doing cross compilation of OS X for the past 5 years!

I don't think this was as big of a secret as you make it out to be, and it certainly doesn't do anything to bolster the argument for using Windows.

Randy — Apr 08, 06 1081

Come on guys, especially Jobs (though why you would call yourself that when you are so clearly a Windows user). If people know anything about Apple it's that they (namely Steve Jobs) like to be in control of their own destiny and also that they have worked hard to produce a worls class OS that is years ahead of Windows XP and the yet to be released Vistsa.

That said do you really think that Steve will allow a Microsoft bugware OS like Windows to be the sole OS on a Mac?

I really don't think so!

To think that is ridiculous. They would never be satisfied running an OS that is so riddled with bugs and security holes. Not to mention millions of lines of "spaghetti code"

Steve Jobs gets a massive kick out of showing Apple's technical superiority over the competition. Also their pro apps are a good source of income and they are free to build updates to the OS X api that allows new features of the pro apps to work like core audio and core everything else. If they moved to Wind'ohs they wouldn't have that luxury any more as Microsoft are the ones that can update their OS.

Also Microsoft's street cred has never been at such an all time low.

Another point to note is that if Apple moved to Windows then Mirosoft would be virtually a total monopoly. That's not good got Microsoft as a company.

This week Apple launches "Boot Camp" which allows you to dual boot into OS X and Windows. If you read the pannels on the right they tell you that Windows boot implimentation is stuck in the 80's with BIOS and they also tell you what a shaky world the Windows worls is. DO you think that they would do this if they are going to totally enbrace that OS.

No, I didn't think so.

ROLMAO

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