ON APPLE RUNNING OS X ON iPODS?

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

Yet another Apple-related post today inspired by this thoughtful post by Rick Segal.  In it, he quotes a "super-smart" friend of his, Pete Field, who wrote in the following sharp-eyed observation:

"With Apple’s announcement a few weeks ago that it was dumping the Portal Player chips in favor of a Samsung chip, I was struck by the big question of…why?

The Portal Player is a 16bit chip and has proven itself as a solid performer for the main applications of a portable media device (music, photo’s video), and Portal Player is releasing a new chip with improved video performance.  The Samsung chip is a 32-bit chip based on an ARM design. This will of course result in decreased battery life, and I didn’t really see what was to be gained.

Then I was struck by the possibility that they could run OS-X on a 32-bit ARM with very little changes to the OS. Though I haven’t come across much data about Unix running on an ARM, I have run across some details of Linux running on ARM devices so I don’t think it is a huge step for OS-X to make that jump. Look how quickly they made the jump to x86.

Once again Apple gets second mover advantage (following Microsoft devices OQO and UMPCs). I suspect they are smart enough to not have a device try to do all things for all people, but the new caveat may be – at all times.  I think this is where Microsoft and their hardware partners are missing the boat with the UMPC. Running OS-X on an iPod would quickly gain market share for their OS.

I see the potential for Media mode and computer mode.

1) Media mode – a non-docked iPod with the ability to play Music, video and view pictures. Very little overhead and clutter of the complete OS.

2) OS-X mode – running the complete OS – potentially the device may have to be docked to use most of the features as the experience of running a full desktop OS on a limited device doesn’t seem to match apple’s dedication to usability.

With a number of people using iPods as portable storage devices, the iPod could quickly move into the Mac Mini as Media Center role, with the exception that the iPod already comes with you anyway.  By the time the iPod with the Samsung chips are released, flash memory will be available in the 20gb range, and hard-drives should be nearing the 200gb range. 

I believe that Apple has also attempted to patent some new computer input methods and this would go a long way to getting the iPod adapted by more business users. The whole thing is as big as the power-supply for most laptops. How many business users would ditch their laptop for something like that?  And the cost of the iPod would not have to increase much in order to fulfill this goal." 

Why is this of interest to me?  In a post back in August last year, I speculated:

"In two years, iPods with a 100GB or more in storage space will be an affordable reality. 

The company could offer a "Mac iPod", loaded with the latest Intel based Mac operating system, which the customer DOES pay for.

But this iPod has a special USB adapter, AND an on-board processor/CPU, much like I've discussed in my "computer-on-a-stick" posts before here and here.

The user can plug this into any existing Windows PC, whether it has Microsoft Windows XP or the new Windows Vista software, and in effect have a dual-boot computer that turns into a Mac.  Of course, Apple would bundle all its cutting edge application software that it already delivers with every Mac.

It would be the new "Mac Micro-Mini"!  And it could be priced under $700, possibly less."

Apple-addled minds think alike, huh?

Comments

[Matt Henson]

The PortalPlayer PP5021 that Apple uses in the nano is not a 16-bit chip, as reported. It uses dual ARM7TDMI cores, which are 32-bit CPU's. The Samsung chip that is rumored to be in the next nano is based on an ARM946, which is also a 32-bit CPU but runs at a higher speed and includes DSP extensions. The Samsung chip isn't substantially faster or more capable than the PLAY chip, but is likely less expensive. The ARM946 lacks an MMU, which is required for complex operating systems like Linux. If they had used something based on an ARM926 or ARM11, such as SigmaTel's STMP3600, then maybe they could run an ARM port of OS X. So, I don't believe that there is a high probability of Apple using OS X in the iPod.