Should Apple offer a free OS X virtual machine inside every iPod?

Several of us have tried this and it works well with the unofficial Tiger virtual machines kicking around the net (although we will apparently 'burn in hell' for doing this according to Steveyboy). Points to note are: 1. The ipod is not designed for large levels of random disk access so the virtual machine can run slowly for disk access operations. All it would take to fix this is a RAM disk where important things were loaded and then saved before ejecting your ipod. 2. The virtual machine hides the operating system from all the differing hardware variations of todays PC lineup. This means the virtual machine just works regardless if it is my laptop or my home PC however performance will depend upon CPU speeds, memory and I/O subsystems. 3. Imagine a scenario where you not only keep your music and video on your ipod but your entire computing environment - and it was an Apple operating system. Sounds like an Apple idea however Steveyboy will never go for it and it will be WinXP virtual machines instead or a cut down Linux distro that takes this niche. Pity but this is where is will go...and is heading already. Sorry Steveyboy but you are going to miss the boat on this one (again) and I am old enough to remember when you missed the boat on opening up the original Mac architecture and it was forever relegated to being second place to the Intel PC market.

wont. happen. evah.

Never happen. As I said on macslash, This is a DUMB idea for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that using an iPod as a boot device for an extended time will drastically shorten its life. Apple does not want to have iPods failing early--the bad PR would more than counteract any sales to new Tiger converts. And then, of course, there's that pesky little problem of making OS X run on every PC out there, what with the countless motherboards, NICs, sound cards, video cards, etc etc etc.

I think MikeV's final sentence about having a coupon, included with the iPod, for a Mac mini is most sensible idea I've read in this post. The mini is supposed the killer app (if you will) to get PC users to switch. Just to have an advertisement in the iPod's box, that, let's say, gives $50 off any mini, with a headline that says something to the effect of: "The Ease of Use and Style of Your New iPod, A computer with the Stability for Whatever You Want to Do" explaining that the mini can be used with the PC owner's current keyboard, mouse, and monitor, would give a better impression than having a VM copy of OSX on the iPod. Having a VM copy on a iPod invites displeasure. First off, the installer is going to take up some amount of storage from the player itself, so iPod users would either just delete it right away without a second thought, or won't ever realize the file is there and, when their iPods get filled up prematurely, they will get pissed off at Apple for lying about storage capabilities. Plus, I don't care if VMOSX is intel optimized, the only real way that a PC user is going to see OSX in all it's glory is if they get the full-fledged version of the OS, and it's going to turn their PC into a dual boot machine. If they get a VMOSX version, it's going to be a slug of its real self just because it has to be run within Windows (I am assuming this would be the case), and has to battle with Windows for resources. This assumes that the PC user even installs the VM in the first place. I doubt many would. People like free money, and to put a bug in their ear (eye?) about getting $50 off a Mac Mini when they open their shiny, new iPod would be quite the motivation IMHO.

there's one big thing that these guys (and anyone who starts talking about "OS X on any x86 machine") are overlooking: drivers There are currently several dozen -- and historically several hundred -- chipsets for PC computers. Various VIA series, all sorts of releases of the nVidia nForce motherboards, etc. OS X won't run on any of those without chipset drivers, and Apple isn't writing them. The current OS X on Intel hacks are running on virtual machines that emulate the (fairly commonplace) chipset that OS X is eventually going to be released on (or something very similar). In order to get an out-of-box, no-hacks-necessary experience like the brain trust above describes, Apple would need to write all these damned drivers. That's not a small job. And if they did it, they might as well release OS X for every computer on the planet.

This idea may be considered a little creative but it would never work. The lacky who would propose this idea to Stevezie would get immediately canned.

Jobs would never allow it to happen. They need to have control over the hardware and software as much as possible. The only exception to the rule is iTunes for Windows, but it's obvious why they had to release it.

lol. won't happen ever. want people to buy more apple computers? keep doing what you're doing, build great mp3 players and software that runs on windows. whether it's quicktime or itunes or the ipod, it is working to get people to consider apple for their computer. how else would you explain the huge increases in mac sales???

This is just the pipe dream of a bored analyst... while I appreciate the idea I dont think it would fly. I would even bet that most ipod users would wipe it off to get the free space back on their ipod before even thinking about looking at it.

While this would work, iPod hard drives are not made to be taxed in such ways. Problems would quickly arise.