What if? The Apple Equation

When it comes to computers, Apple’s big selling point used to be the operating system. That was in the Mac OS 9 and before days. You could compare Windows 3.1 and the Mac OS, and it was very clear that the Mac was a superior operating system. Mac OS X is still a selling point, but not in the same way Mac OS <=9 was. The reasons for switching to Mac OS X are geekier—a lot of Linuxheads I know have switched to Mac OS X at least for their mobile platforms. Mac OS X is interesting under the hood to the geeks.

But Apple’s big selling point now is software. Take a look at iLife. This software is freaking awesome. I installed iLife ‘05 on my PowerBook on Friday. This is amazing stuff. The ease of use of this software is truly great. I used to use Windows Media Player on my PCs until iTunes came out for PC. iTunes is superior in every respect. I’ve been comparing iPhoto 5.0 to the Canon ZoomBrowser EX 5.0 installed on my PC. No comparison!

The fun part of the equation is participatory. It’s saying “What if?” about Apple. So how about: What if Apple ported Mac OS X to the Intel platform and sold it for $100? What if Apple released iLife for Windows? What if Apple released a cheap Mac? (Okay, they did this in fine fashion.) Or how about: What if 15% of the Windows userbase switched to Mac?

The lynchpin preventing Apple from porting their software over to Wintel is Hardware. Apple’s hardware business has historically been the most profitable area of the company. They make billions from their hardware. This is changing because of the iPod. The iPod has sweetened Apple’s bottom line, and in my opinion makes some of these What if? questions more plausible. Given that Apple’s hardware business is less important to the company’s financial health, what are the chance that Steve Jobs would port the Apple assets to Wintel? Not likely of course. But it’s a fun rainy day activity to imagine a world in which Mac and Windows were side by side, rather than being in separate universes. The iPod has been a great uniter. I will be watching closely to see what Apple decides to do given that most iPods are sold for Windows.

And just to throw this out for discussion: What if Apple brought their design sense to Wintel and started releasing Apple-branded boxes with Intel/AMD chips inside that ran Mac OS X?