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PDA Based on Mac OS X
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Whenever an Apple made PDA is mentioned, most people say that it should be, or “will” be based on Mac OS X. Why does a hand-held device need to be based on such a powerful OS? Does a PDA really need multi-tasking and protected memory, with a dock, and aqua interface?
I think that a more viable solution would be similiar to what Microsoft did. Creating a Windows Lite version (Windows CE). If you needed a PDA capable of rendering Aqua, then you need a pretty hefty processor driving the price up, up, up!
So I ask, what is the big deal on an Apple PDA being based on Mac OS X? Are people expecting to run Mail.app or Preview.app on their hand-helds? As long as the OS integrates with Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 and has a Mac-Like, intuitive interface, then who cares what OS it is?
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It’s interesting though…
I wonder just how small a footprint UNIX can have anyway? When I think of a small and streamlined OS, I certainly don’t think of ‘NIX.Signature
"ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" - Charles Darwin
What’s the difference between a Mac and a PC? Macs are designed, PCs are assembled.
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Linux has a huge head start on this, but Unix *can* scale down nicely. I would be surprised if Apple has made much progress on that, however, as they concentrate on bringing X to the desktop.
The main reason why Apple should base any new handheld on Mac OS X, however, is so that it can netboot from an X server (I have gone on at length about my little fantasy of an Apple handheld ).
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Editor - The Mac Observer
Favorite (but less relevant than it used to be) Quote: Microsoft’s tyranny lies not in its success, but in the way it achieved and maintains that success.
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Can’t Mac OS 9 machines, as clients, netboot?
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Justin on 2001-06-25 15:26 ]</font>
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yup
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"ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" - Charles Darwin
What’s the difference between a Mac and a PC? Macs are designed, PCs are assembled.
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David Nelson
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I agree, Justin. Besides the excessive nature of having Mac OS X on a handheld, there’s no way an Apple PDA will run anything close to the full Mac OS X at this point in time considering that PDAs typically have 2 to 10 MB of memory while Mac OS X needs 128 MB minimum.
