Perhaps I got into the wrong line of work. Apparently, you can be a “journalist” without having to do a whole heckuvalot of research. Today’s example comes from May Wong, via a story distributed by AP on the new Mactel machines. Specifically, I refer to the portion of the article which states:
…Apple’s move opens up the issue of backward compatibility and the possibility that PC users might run pirated versions of Mac OS X, Apple’s critically acclaimed operating system, on their generally cheaper non-Apple computers.
Now this statement, according to previously published reports from Apple themselves, is 100% false. See this Macworld article for the scoop. Scroll down about 2/3 of the way through the page to the question “Will any PC be able to run Mac OS X for Intel?” which answers the question thusly:
Apple says no. Our guess is that some enterprising hacker may be able to get it to work, but we’d expect that if anyone can get OS X to run on PC hardware, it will be a laborious process, and the end result may not be a particularly stable system. You certainly won’t be able to go out, buy OS X, stick the install DVD in a Dell PC, and have it just work. Apple intends Mac OS X to only run on Apple hardware.
So your average PC user won’t be able to do it. A hard-core geek might, and it could be iffy at best. (Look at this article for an example of how complex the process can be.) This little bit of digging took about five minutes. I guess I could do her job in addition to mine, since hers doesn’t take all that much time…
